


My Lungs and Your Lilac Eyes

by lavenderforluck



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Domestic Violence, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Islamophobia, Liam is sheltered, M/M, Past Sexual Assault, Religious overtones, Underage Sex, Zayn is artistic, louis is in Uni, mild drug use, sixth form AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:09:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1763743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderforluck/pseuds/lavenderforluck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a love story. It’s an accident, mostly. Nearly all of them are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Lungs and Your Lilac Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is a re-post for anyone who wanted to read this. I believe I entered in all the correct warnings and tags, I'll be happy to add some you do not see. 
> 
> I specifically put 'past sexual assault' because the person in question was underage in the UK (15) and consent was never negotiated. Domestic violence includes between parents where no actual hitting takes place, and sibling-on-sibling, which is physical. If you'd like a more detail description of what happens and do not mind spoilers, please let me know.
> 
> None of the religious views expressed in this are of my own. The song, which is the theme song to this story, is If I Had a Boat by James Vincent McMorrow.
> 
> Also, this did not happened. It is an AU.

-

Liam meets Zayn by accident. It had been, incidentally, the morning he had found his grandmother cold beside her bedside, and the same afternoon his sister had left the convent to come live with him until he turned eighteen.

Ruth was on the phone all afternoon after the medics had taken his grandmother to the morgue, and Liam had sat patiently on the saran wrapped floral couch cushions in the living room, staring out the front window and paying careful mind not to bite his lip all the way through. He wondered briefly if this was grief. He felt hardly anything at all.

Her funeral was already planned for the next day, and the topics of food and flowers came up from the kitchen and Liam could bear no more. His sister was neatly wrapping up his grandmother and burying her so quietly, as if she hardly existed at all.

He ventured out in his backyard, somewhere he almost never went because his grandmother rarely had it trimmed up and it was too wet to lie in the grass almost all year. It was peaceful there, though, a good gulp of evening air to help him clear his head. His hands were clammy, even when he wiped them on his jeans. His head felt like it was full of fluff.

The neighboring home was relatively newer than the rest of the neighborhood, and it stood out like a sore thumb. The rest of the street was aristocratic, historical homes from the Victorian period and smothered with domesticity. Liam’s grandmother’s home always smelt old like it was blustering and constantly complaining of a breeze. It had an odor of old books and lady perfume. Liam suspected that this was common among most of the houses. Except for the one next door.

On the balcony of the second floor, above Liam’s head, a boy sat with his slim legs poking out between the thin metal bars, smoking a fag. He stared down at Liam contemplatively for a second, and there was no judgement, no fear. He raised his hand, barely a wave, barely a few fingers, and shook them. Liam wonders if he saw the ambulance earlier. Liam understands it as I’m sorry for your loss, and goes back inside to take a bath.

-

This is a love story. It’s an accident, mostly. Nearly all of them are.

-

Liam takes another bath the morning of his grandmother’s funeral. He sits in the water in his bathroom on the second floor, holding his head under until he feels like he’s just jumped into a swimming pool and inhaled a litre of water up his nose. His head feels light and fuzzy.

Ruth bangs on the door, “We’ve got people to greet, Li, get dressed. Suits’ waiting for you in your room.”

Liam hasn’t spoken to his sister for nearly three years, even though they’re relatively close in age. They had the same DNA, but she had never been raised by their grandmother like he was, and therefore, they were a different type of siblings. Ruth was tall, frigid, but very pretty, with neat corn silk blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Liam had golden hair, like a bruised halo, and brown eyes. He was tall and too lanky for all sports except for running.

“I’ll be out in one minute,” Liam says to no one in particular. He’s out of the tub and toweled off in fifty-four seconds.

-

His neighbor from the balcony is not at the funeral, but his parents are. They are sharply dressed and respectful and Muslim, and Ruth purses her lips and discreetly busies herself with the flowers on the table so she doesn’t have to shake their hands. Liam does so for her instead, his eyes sore and tired from trying not to cry.

Later, while everyone is sitting in the backyard, now pruned and rather clean for the memorial, Ruth pulls him into the kitchen.

“Goodness, I didn’t think they’d actually show, the invite was just out of courtesy.” she gripes, pursing her lips and slicing pieces of cake. Her eyes are piercing as she stares at them through the window.

“Why wouldn’t they?” Liam asks sensibly. He really wants to ask why she has such a problem with these two guests in particular, but he knows that answer: because they’re not God’s Children, as Ruth likes to call devoted Christians. He doesn’t like that answer, though, so he keeps his mouth shut and places cake on plates. In truth, Liam’s grandmother always seemed to like her neighbors, and Mr. Malik, as Liam knew him, was a very well off doctor. This fact does not seem make imprint on Ruth’s judgement.

-

Later, after all the guests have left, even Aunt Clara who smelt like sherry and cried in her serving of rice pudding, Liam found himself in one of the chairs outside. This is the second time in two days that he’s been out in his backyard in a very long time, but between his grandmother’s smell and Ruth’s nosy nature, the house seemed suffocating.

It was dark enough to see the embers of the balcony boy’s cigarette. Liam raises his hand, barely two or three fingers, and waves back. The boy disappears from view and then reappears at the gate down below.

“Hi,” he says, and his voice sounds like autumn and cigarette ash.

Liam stalks over to him, lumpy in his suit and uncomfortably starched. His skin is stretched too taut and thin. “Hello.”

“Sorry about your grandmum,” the boy leans his cheek against the lip of rough wooden fence. “My parents said it was a nice ceremony. I’m Zayn.”

“Thanks. I’m Liam - I - I’m glad they could come on such short notice. My sister wanted it over with,” Liam shuffles awkwardly. He’s dying to try out the name Zayn, roll it around in his mouth and taste it. Say and feel it leave his lips. He feels dizzy all of a sudden, and very strange.

“You look tired,” Zayn eyes, narrowing perceptibly at the way Liam shivers. It’s not that cold, but just enough. “Come upstairs. Probably don’t want to be spending too much time in that house right now, eh?”

Liam nods glumly, “It’s truly dreadful, now that I look at it.”

Zayn laughs, looking up behind Liam’s shoulder to gaze at the looming house, nearly bruised with ancient age. He unlatches the gate and gestures for Liam to step in beside him.

Liam follows him up a small spiral staircase up to the balcony again, the Malik’s yard neatly trimmed and void of any personality. It looks like a professional keeps it up. Zayn’s balcony is a different story: there are a few pillows and a comforter strewn on the wooden floor, with chalk and three or four packs of cigarettes littered about. All the ashtrays are full, and there is a broken record player sitting desolately in the corner, hosting an array of nearly melted candles.

“It’s a mess, innit?” Zayn squints like he’s suddenly embarrassed, “Never had anyone up here, actually.”

This surprises Liam. For some reason, Zayn struck him as someone with quite a few frequent visitors. “I think it’s nice...peaceful.”

“Don’t you have a space like this at your grandmum’s?” Zayn settles down on one of the oversize magenta pillows, and Liam sits next to him, stiff and crouched on one of the blankets that has a disconcerting stain in the middle of it. His sneakers look squeaky clean and completely out of place.

Liam shakes his head, “No. It was a bit like a time capsule. No messes allowed and all that. But it was alright. As long as you ate in the kitchen,” he adds smiling ryely.

“Saddest story I’ve ever heard. Eating in the kitchen. It’s an offence against your personal freedoms,” Zayn giggles, and Liam thinks he looks so attractive when he giggles, his laugh horsey and sore like he’s smoked too much and has a constantly sore throat; his eyebrows drawn up on his forehead and his eyes squinting until all Liam could see was a line of thick eyelashes.

It’s quiet for a little bit. Zayn lights a candle that looks like it’s been built upon with random waxes and has permanently fermented against the wood. From his balcony, away from the street lamps, Liam can truly see the stars. The sky is a plum purple, not gray. It’s spectacular and intimidating.

He’s suddenly incredibly sleepy.

“Why don’t you just lie down,” Zayn says, taking Liam’s drooping form. “Just for a little while. I’ll wake you up if you fall asleep,” he amends, and Liam sags down farther into the cold balcony floor. Zayn scoots closer, pulling at the lapels of Liam’s formal jacket. Liam slithers out of it, peeling off his dress shirt, too, until he’s just left in his crew neck. He slumps down, curled like a tiny sea shrimp underneath a nicotine stained comforter.

“Thanks,” he mutters sleepily, “I wonder if grandmother is a star now.”

“She could be,” Zayn muses, settling down next to him and lighting a cigarette. The tip burns gold for a second and Liam closes his eyes, feeling warm and cold and contented and lost all at the same time, swirling in his gut like a swamp of grief and weird, detached anguish. “We’ll figure that out later, though. Lots of time...”

Liam doesn’t hear the end of the sentence. He’s asleep.

-

Liam eats breakfast at his grandmother’s breakfast table. It’s stale raisin bran but he bears on and eats it anyway. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Ruth stands at the table wearing a turtleneck and her hair is pulled back so tightly from her forehead it looks like it’s pulling at her skin. She is so much paler than Liam remembers her.

They do not speak a word to each other.

-

Liam is giving a week’s leave because of the family tragedy, according to his school. He’s in his second to last year before he’s off to University, and this much leave shouldn’t be granted, but it is. Ruth moves in upstairs. She has one tiny suitcase from the convent a tiny town near Bristol, and postcards of the Vatican pinned delicately on the wall in their grandmother’s old bedroom. Liam wonders how she sleeps in there without having nightmares. Then he wonders directly after if Ruth even has nightmares. She seems, at times, scarcely human at all.

On the second morning of his holiday, a Tuesday, he waits for Mr. Malik’s car to slide out of the drive away, and the Mrs. Malik to leave with a group of women in a shiny silver BMW before he goes to the side gate. He looks up at the balcony to see Zayn staring back down at him, legs swinging through the metal bars. Zayn’s face is alight with good humor.

“Hello,” Liam blocks the sunshine from his eyes, blinking against the light. “I wanted to thank you again for the other night, and also, to ask if you wanted company up there.”

“Thought I scared you off when the comforter nearly caught on fire,” Zayn chuckles.

“What?” Liam blinks.

“Nothing. Anyway, listen, come on up. I just got an _Arctic Monkeys_ album on vinyl in the mail.”

Liam has heard of the Arctic Monkey’s through school but was never allowed to listen to that type of music at home because his grandmother found disruptive. He reaches over to unlock the gate anyway and walks briskly through the yard as if he might disturb the perfectly manicured grass in case he stepped on it too harshly.

Upstairs, Zayn is curled up with a comforter, an unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips and his bare legs sticking out straight in front of him. He has round, knobbly knees, and rather thin legs. “Hey,” he looks up at Liam, who feels too hot all of a sudden.

“Er, hi. So, the Monkey’s?” Liam amends awkwardly, sitting crossed legged adjacent to Zayn, careful not to touch his naked thigh. A trim line of boxer brief fabric peeks at him briefly. Dark purple.

Zayn shakes his head, lifting the wax stained lid to his apparently working record player and slipping a shiny disc onto the rotator. The newness of the disc contrasts the general shittyness of the player, but Liam says nothing. “Not the Monkees, Liam, The Arctic _Monkeys_. Alex Turner and all his glory. His undying but doomed love for Alexa. All the heartbreak.”

“Oh, right.” Liam says, even though he hasn’t the faintest idea. He sits patiently for the record to start playing. Zayn turns back to him and barks out a peal of surprised laughter.

“You’re so stiff, mate. Sit back, relax. Listen, I know it’s early, but do you want to share a bowl?”

“Sure,” Liam says, distracted by the way the tiny sliver of blonde catches the sun in Zayn’s bangs. His eyelashes are possibly the longest he’s seen on anyone, ever. “I mean, what bowl?”

“A bowl, Liam, a bowl, you know. Do you know what smoking a bowl is?” Zayn waggles his eyebrows, pulling out a small glass utensil shaped like one of those Sherlock Holmes pipes. It’s bright turquoise and Zayn is currently stuffing it with marijuana. Liam feels his eyes widen and his heart jumps into his throat for a second before he finds himself.

Zayn offers it to him, but Liam is helpless to understand. “I’ve never...I haven’t done that before,” he offers, quite piteously. He hopes Zayn doesn’t scoff at him and turn him away, and Liam is sent back to that dark old house with it’s dark old ways.

“You haven’t, truly?” Zayn shrugs, “Fair enough. Watch me.”

He lifts the small end of the pipe to his lips, holding his fingers against the base of it in a fashion that looks intentional, pulling a plastic lighter and lighting just the top of green. It burns, little flicks of red hot fire, and Zayn hollows his cheeks, sucking in and squinting when his throat bobs and he swallows the smoke. It disappears, and Liam watches, fascinated, as it drifts out of his nose a few seconds later. Zayn blinks, and then a slow smile crawls onto his face.

“You want to try it now?” Zayn smiles, and there is no judgement, no smugness, not an ounce of pretension. Liam reaches it, and then a image of his sister appears in his head. Her tight brow and frigid, unsmiling mouth.

“I want to, I’ve just never done it before.” Liam frowns. “What if I’m terribly embarrassing?”

Zayn laughs, and it is even raspier than the first time Liam heard it, and he thought it was impossible to like it more than he already did - but - wow. “How about, I...just come here. Sit right up against me, just across, like so...” he directs Liam’s body closer, his hands petite and slender in comparison, pipe still cradled between his index and his forefingers.

They’re knee to knee, face to face, the sun directly on Zayn’s high cheek bones. From the direction of it, it must be just after noon. Liam would be in Economics at this moment. Instead, he’s here, and it feels infinitely more important right now.

“You’re gonna come close when I tell you to, open your mouth and I’ll blow the smoke in. It’ll be, maybe weird at first. But you’ll feel really good. And I won’t ever laugh at you, Liam Payne. Don’t worry,” Zayn smiles, cradling the pipe with one hand and Liam’s elbow with the other.

Zayn tucks it between his lips, lights, and sucks. This time, his eyes flutter open to stare at Liam, who is staring blatantly back, he knows, mouth probably gaping slightly. Zayn’s fingers come up to cup the back Liam’s neck, slightly cold but also hot at the tips. Liam dips in, lips parted and his eyes fall closed on their own accord.

The smoke is billowing and thick and tastes strongly pungent on his tongue, but he swallows it, trapping it in his chest. It feels strangely like grief, that strangling pressure in his trachea. He likes it, licks his lips, and realizes he’s accidentally licked Zayn’s lips, just the corner of his mouth. Their lips touch. Liam can feel Zayn’s eyelashes flutter against his cheeks.

“Sorry,” he whispers, wisps of smoking slipping through his lips. Zayn has not moved. Liam dared not to.

“Don’t be,” Zayn breathes back, before scooting that much closer and kissing Liam, pressing his lips against Liam’s and it’s like little pillows, the softest pillows he’s ever felt. Also the littlest. Liam may be a teesny bit high, but it’s the best and he doesn’t want it to end and also he doesn’t want Zayn to quit kissing him.

It stops becoming enough quickly, and Liam opens his mouth because that logically seems like the next step and - apparently, it is, because Zayn breathes through his nose and grips the nape of his neck closer and lick the roof of Liam’s mouth, swirling his tongue around as his other hand sweeps against his ribcage, and it sparks a hot feeling down in Liam’s groan, quick and lighting fire sure.

Liam parts, breathes deeply, and blinks rapidly all at the same time. Zayn is looking preciously dazed and beautiful in front of him, and it isn’t until now that Liam notices the deep rings of purple underneath his eyes. He looks tired, immeasurably tired, beneath his immediate beauty.

“I’ve never done that before,” Liam breathes.

“What? The weed, or the kissing?” Zayn looks over at him, grinning. “Ah, I see. Both. I haven’t corrupted you, neighbour boy?”

“I think you have.” Liam rubs his eyes. “But I think I liked it.”

“That’s good,” Zayn assents, leaning back against the pillows and closing his eyes briefly. He looks exhausted, his purple bruises giving his eyes a sharp, unfriendly edge. It contrasts his cheeky smile, still stagnant on his lips. They spend the next three hours listening to various records as Zayn nods in and out of consciousness. Liam is patient and quiet beside him, listening to music he’s never had the opportunity to really indulge in, touching someone he’s been taught to believe is wrong. And he likes it, he really, really does.

-

Ruth is unnaturally still at dinner. “Where were you this morning? I was going to see Sister Mary and I thought you’d ought to come, only you’d disappeared.” Her fork and knife are poised against the meatloaf like weapons.

“Oh, I,” Liam swallowed, pressing his napkin against his mouth, “Went to see my friend Niall. He was homesick from class today, so I kept him company.”

Ruth narrows her eyes. “He’s not the homosexual Grandmother told me you keep company with, is he? Because honestly, Liam.”

“No, no, Niall is not gay. You’re thinking of Louis. Or maybe Harry.”

“Two of them? Goodness. Well, I know your grandmother was quite expressive about the types of people she kept around, but I want to make it very clear that this is God’s house now and there are certain things that aren’t allowed anymore. If Niall wants to come around for dinner, then he is always welcome. We always want God’s Children.” She finishes primly, wiping her tiny mouth and standing up, whisking her plate away.

Liam stares numbly at his plate, stomach twisting. He’s suddenly not very hungry at all. His skin feels hot, as if his blood is nearly boiling, and his head is throbbing painful, the temple beating like a kick drum.

-

Liam knocks on the wooden gate just after dusk, the night a soothing, pretty lavender, and Zayn’s head pops out of balcony doorway.

“Liam,” he says, “come on up.”

Liam ascends the winding staircase, stepping inside the sliding glass doorway to Zayn’s room. There’s a large bed against one wall, with a purple and orange comforter, but it isn’t made. There are three or four piles of messily stacked books near the bed table, all balancing half empty cups of tea and even an unpeeled orange. Zayn is sitting on the floor nursing what smells like cup of very strong black coffee, typing away on his laptop.

“Your room is really very nice,” Liam offers, feeling awkward standing there. Zayn’s room is messy, but creative and flush with color. There’s a poster of the Taj Mahal and a another of Kurt Cobain on one of the walls. “Sorry if you were busy.”

Zayn closes his laptop suddenly, taking a long pull from his cup. A tiny river of coffee drips down his chin, which he catches and wipes away with his sleeve. “Not at all, what’s up?”

Liam is at a loss for words. He suddenly feels like all the air has constricted in his throat and he can’t stop wringing his hands and he keeps having to make the conscious effort to breathe -

“Hey,” Zayn stands up, his voice shades softer. “You okay, mate? Look a bit peaky.”

“I just - “ Liam gestures wildly, taking a deep breath and steering himself. “At my house, my sister. I - I want you to know that what I did with you today, I’ve never done that. And I’m suppose to consider it a sin, it’s suppose to be sinful, and I don’t understand how something so private and so harmless could be so terrible, but I just want you to know that.”

Liam catches Zayn’s eyes. He looks thoughtfully blank, but his eyes are heavy with - with something like sorrow. And Liam never wants to see that look on his face, and most of all, he never wants to be the person to put it there. He understands that now. So he keeps talking. “So even though it’s supposedly a sin against God, according to my sister, and I’m an inexperienced waste of time, I really...I really liked that you kissed me. And I’m not ashamed of it. I’m not.”

There’s a blanket of silence between them, both suffocating and the most freeing Liam has ever felt. Zayn’s fingers come up to brush Liam’s arm, the inside of his elbow, down to his wrist, where his hand circles around the veins and the bone, staying there. Holding.

“I don’t think you’re a waste of time,” he says slowly, like he’s testing each individual word out, “I’ve watched you come and go, Liam, for two years now. Catering to your grandmother, pleasing and carrying out her every wish. I see you with your friends sometimes, how loyal you are and when you prune the flower beds and do the mowing and I think - I could never think that you were a waste of time.” His eyes are full of curiosity and unwavering seriousness. Liam’s heart stutters wildly in his rib cage like it’s trying to escape.

“Can I kiss you again?” Zayn asks. Liam nods, leaning forward, eyes falling shut.

His fingers are nimble and calloused when they come up to cup Liam’s cheeks, pulling him forward and his lips are just as soft, stained with coffee, his smell overwhelming and welcoming at the same time. Liam feels a hook somewhere around his navel, dragging him in and stationing him there, against Zayn, boxed in his arms as they move to wrap around his neck.

-

And that’s it, really. That’s how it starts.

-

Liam continues school the next week, and Ruth finds a small job at a Christian childcare a few miles away. Niall sits next to him at lunch, stuffing his face with mash. He looks more serious than Liam has ever seen him. Niall pats him on the hand twice, skin clammy and then he’s resumed to his food. Liam realizes that’s about as much pity as he’s going to get from Niall, and this is why they've always been such good mates.

“You returning to practice after school, right?” Niall asks when his tray has been cleared of food.

“Yeah. Three, right?”

Niall nods, lips tucked underneath his teeth as he dumps his tray, giving Liam a polite salute. “Three. Good to have you back, mate.”

-

After school, Liam goes to track practice because spring is just around the corner, and then he catches up on the momentous amount of work he missed while he was grieving. He’s halfway through his maths packet, mildly cursing his teacher for the all the equations, when Ruth comes into the kitchen.

“You’re doing your work at the table?” she sniffs, pulling out a box of instant mash potatoes, the flaky ones Liam hates.

“Yeah. Is there something wrong?”

“No. Well, yes. I just had the most distressing call with your wayward sister. Apparently she’s in Rome or something, doing only God knows what,” Ruth says your sister like it’s utter poison in her mouth, and Liam sours inwardly at her tone. He’s always liked Nicola, even though she’s nearly twelve years older than him and she was never around when he was a baby. She was an art history major who traveled and occasionally sent him a postcard with some colorful city on the front, and Liam was pretty sure she wasn’t wayward.

“But no matter,” Ruth says without waiting for Liam. “God’s plan for her is separate from my own.”

Liam really has no idea how to respond to that, so instead he clears the table of all his work and tells Ruth he won’t be hungry for dinner.

-

“Hi,” Liam greets Zayn, whose head is peeking around the door. Zayn smiles, a row of pearly white teeth visible in the near darkness.

“Liam, mate. Have a seat. Just tidying up.”

‘Just tidying up’ really translates to Zayn organizing his entire vinyl collection, which Liam is enlisted to help in about two seconds. They sit side by side, shuffling through records and placing them in a new order that to Liam seems nonsensical but apparently makes perfect sense to Zayn. Liam doesn’t question it.

He focuses instead on how nice it feels to have Zayn’s knee overlapping his own, pressed together. Zayn’s hip is rather bony against Liam’s, who has not seen his own hipbone since he joined the boxing gym down the street from his school two years ago. His grandmother had gone on a crime show binge and insisted Liam buff up, just in case they are burglarized in the middle of night.

All of a sudden, Liam is laughing at the memory.

“Liam? You okay?” Zayn looks over, mouth pinched in his own amusement. Liam shakes his head, giggling and waving his hand at Zayn, trying to translate the don’t mind me, I’m just having a replay of every wonderful thing about my grandmother in my head. No big deal.

“Sorry,” Liam wipes his mouth. “I just thought of something. I mean, grief is kind of a funny thing, isn’t it?”

Zayn narrows his eyes. “It...can be. Maybe in a darkly humorous way, I suppose.”

“My grandmother - she was a funny lady. I’m just always reminded of her antics all the time. I have to find them funny, really bloody funny, otherwise I might have myself a cry.”

Zayn cringes, “That’s a really...that’s a good way of looking at it, Liam. I mean. I’d always rather have a laugh than a cry, yeah?”

Liam wipes at his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, completely.”

Around a half an hour later, Zayn is fidgety and tired, fingers thumping around on miscellaneous objects in his room. Tea cups, books, his Macbook. “Do you want to stay over the night?” Zayn asks finally. “I haven’t slept so well since you came up onto the balcony the first night. Even before the balcony.”

He worries his bottom lip while Liam gathers his words, and Liam remembers the first night, how exhausted he had been. In his memory, that night smells like candles and wax burning and Zayn’s musty comforter.

“I’ll stay until I’ve got to get ready for school,” Liam consents, then pauses. “Why don’t you got to school with us?”

Zayn wraps his arms around his knees, clutching them to his chest. “Home schooling. My mother puts my assignments on the computer at the beginning of the week, and I have until Friday to finish them all.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

Zayn takes a moment to consider this question. He cocks his head to the side. “Sometimes. People are complicated though, you know? I had a lot of friends back in Bradford, but after we moved...online school kids can pretty weird.”

Liam scrunches his nose, “A bit weird.”

-

The night moves along slowly, dragging its heels the later it gets. Liam’s eyes feel dry and achy, and Zayn is shuffling a stack of books around by author last name. His face is bleary and pale, his usually sky high quiff drooping to the side.

“You’re falling asleep,” Zayn smiles, and Liam is close enough to see that his lips are chapped.

“I don’t know how you aren’t passed out right now,” Liam yawns through his words again, but he does not miss the way Zayn shrugs, biting his lip and sucking in his cheek with his teeth. Zayn stands up from his position on the floor to close the sliding glass door. Liam stares up at him, watching the way his limbs moved as he turned off various lights and pulled his contacts out into a saline case on the bedside table. He feels particularly enchanted with Zayn’s tanned kneecaps.

“Do you - do you want to sleep up here, with me?” Zayn asks, looking at Liam over the rims of his square lens glasses.

“Is that okay? I mean, I don’t want to...” What Liam wants to say is that all he wants to do is sleep, and he doesn’t want to touch or feel or kiss or anything, because Ruth’s tone of voice is still scalding inside his brain and God’s Children is like a tinny, mechanical mantra running circles around his heart and he wants, but his body constricts every time he even thinks about reaching out to take. “I know we kissed, but all I want to do is sleep, if that’s okay. Sorry. Oh god. That was so terribly weird. Okay. Wow. Forget I said anything.”

Zayn chuckles, rubbing his eyes. “Liam, jeez, it’s okay. It’s just sleeping. I would never want to make you feel like you need to proclaim anything - I’m very interested in you keeping your virtue just as much as you are.” He is smiling through his teeth as he says this.

Liam tugs at his hair. “Okay, no. I mean, I liked it and everything, I was just unsure that you meant - sleeping or _sleeping_. I told you, I’m not well versed with all this...”

His smile is sweet and too endearing, like a pastel candy that would rot Liam’s teeth. “Relax. Lie down next to me.”

Liam concedes to do just that. Zayn’s bed smells like Zayn’s everything: smoky and like incense and books and coffee. Liam really likes his smell. He wonders if he should take off his gym shorts and wear just his boxers, but he’s comfortable and it is still chilly from the breeze before. Zayn is turning out the light, but not before Liam sees his printed boxers. They are bunnies on them.

“You always this tired?” Liam asks into the darkness. Zayn’s cheek is pressed up against the inside of Liam’s neck, and the skin on skin feeling, the silkiness is just unbelievable. Zayn fidgets lying down like he does everything else, like he’s situating around in his bones before finding a place he likes. Liam hopes it is next to him.

“I don’t really sleep a lot.” Zayn sighs. “I’m usually up through the night.”

“Well, then,” Liam murmurs eyes falling close. “Sleep tight.”

-

Liam dreams of Zayn. And the dreams. They are entirely too sweet.

-

Liam wakes up to a sore neck and heavy lidded eyes, nearly pulling him back under into subconsciousness, but the sun is rising over the trees through the sliding glass door. Zayn is standing with his bare back to Liam, drinking something out of a coffee cup. He seems to searching for something he can’t find.

Liam sits up, ruffling the blankets and Zayn turns around. He smiles, a slow, sure, morning smile.

“You’re awake,” Liam’s voice is groggy and tired and almost as hoarse as Zayn’s, but no where near as lovely. “We scarcely slept at all.”

Zayn shrugs, looking at the tiny union jack clock on his wall. “I slept. That’s what counts.”

He sets his cup down on his dresser, sliding in underneath the duvet next to  Liam, fingers trailing the tiny hairs on Liam’s belly button before pulling away. His body is cold from the drafty room air, but pressing next to Liam’s overheated sleep soaked skin, it feels delightful.

“Why can’t you sleep?” Liam asks, rolling onto his side and running his fingers along Zayn’s collarbone. Even he can feel the shaky confidence in his own fingers. Zayn smiles softly, closing his eyes at the touch.

“My parents only argue when they’re sure I’m asleep. So when I was, er, like thirteen I suppose, I would purposely stay up. I still feel like if I sleep for too long, I could wake up and my father would be gone. Or worse, my mother.”

It’s honest, and bluntly put, but Zayn’s voice is kind and vulnerable and Liam feels like his skin has been peeled back to reveal all his bones. He worries his lip, looking at Zayn’s high cheek bones, smashed against a purple pillow, and the long line of eyelashes dusting his skin, the freckle on his neck. Liam almost says, I’m sorry - except. Except he’s been receiving sorry for the past two weeks, and the word has lost it’s meaning to him. So instead, he says,

“We’re all a little bit self-sacrificial, aren’t we?” Liam smiles sardonically, moving his fingers up to cup Zayn’s cheek. “Breaking our own hearts for the sake of everyone else.”

Zayn stares at him for a moment, before his hand fingers Liam’s hip, dragging his blunt nails against his adonis cut. Liam tries not to twitch at the sensation, and then Zayn is rolling on top of him, tangling their legs and lining up their hips, brushing his fingers through Liam’s mop of golden curls up and away from his forehead. He places his lips against the freckles of Liam’s forehead.

“Are you breaking for anyone, Liam Payne?” he teases, but there’s understanding in his eyes, deep and brown and bottomless as they are.

Liam swallows harshly, thinking of his grandmother and his sisters and even his friends at school. “Sometimes.”

 

-

Liam leaves Zayn sleepy eyed and curled up underneath a comforter so he can dress and pack for school. His whole body is buzzing, and there is a light and fluffy jump to each step he takes.

Ruth left a neatly printed note saying she went out to meet with some of the sisters here in Wolverhampton, and Liam can feel the house sigh in relief now that’s she left for a bit. His fingers run along the walls as he walks through the dark hallways, something he’s not been allowed to do since he remembers living with his grandmother.

In the shower, he masturbates; the hot water prickling his chest and shoulders pink, the steam clouding his nose, his hand on his dick, pumping the base and flicking his wrist along the head, running his thumb over his slit to bring him closer to the edge. Teetering, eyes shut and hand clutch the wall, Zayn’s open lips, his thin thighs, the way his eyelashes look, caked with sleep -

Liam comes over his fist, watching as it swirls down the drain. He leans his cheek against the cool tile, barely able to breathe with all the heat. His cheeks are blushing bright red, he knows from experience. He can’t help the sting of embarrassment, but his body feels lighter than it has in days. His chest doesn’t ache and there is no sharp sting in his eyes every time he passes his grandmother’s bedroom on the second floor.

 

-

School becomes a count down until he can come home and sneak over to Zayn’s. In a way, Liam likes the test of his patience, how he has to patiently tick off each hour and homework assignment just so he can see him. Ruth has settled into a routine with the new sisters at the convent, who have now started to come over for breakfast before they all carpool to St. Mary’s to teach grade school children. Liam appreciates the distraction it places on Ruth, who doesn’t notice him slipping in each morning.

And Liam loves sleeping next to Zayn, curled up in a cocoon of expensive comforters that smell like cologne and books and boy - no more musty floral, grandmother-y smells that remind Liam of the life he once had. Zayn sleeps with all his limbs, moving in a twitching, playful way when he snuggles up next to him. Rubbing his cheek against Liam’s shoulder, smoothing his lips against the planes of his chest, kissing each finger before Liam has to disappear for school.

They watch movies on Zayn’s laptop, since Liam has missed a good majority of films that weren’t predated to 1960: Dead Poets’ Society with the inspirational Mr. Keating, Ewan McGregor in Big Fish, almost all of the Harry Potter movies, and then the Lord of the Ring trilogy, which Liam had not seen but liked quite a bit - Hotel Rwanda which made him cry profusely, and Pineapple Express, which some of the references he didn’t understand but he’d never laughed until he cramped during a movie before.

Zayn has millions of movies, millions of pop culture references at his fingertips: boxes upon boxes of DVDs and vintage VHS, his favorite vinyls (Arctic Monkeys, Black Keys, Nirvana, and the Beatles’ _Rubber Soul_ ) tacked up on wall while they rest were filed away in an elaborate organization system, CDs of bands Liam’s never heard of, and some oldies that he has; books of all kinds, including children’s novels and some very curious gay erotica; large, intimidatingly bound classic novels, books on poetry, war, feminism, and Buddhism.

Sometimes Liam will pick a topic and let Zayn carry on about it, telling stories and rambling about. Sometimes that is the only way he will fall asleep. Sometimes Liam can feel Zayn wake, as if he’s trapped and memorized every movement of his body, like he’s committed to his brain every sneeze, cough, fart, inhale, exhale, the blood in his heart, rushing into his ears, the flutter of his eyelashes. Liam focuses on every thought he has now, even those that are fleeting, because most of them are tainted by Zayn, and that is the most overwhelming feeling of all. If his heart swells any larger, it might break.

-

That night, things shift. They move around and Liam feels like his whole body has constricted and expanded at the same time. The air is so delicious like he’s tasting it for the first time and yet he can’t catch his breath. Maybe the plants are aligned. Maybe the stars are falling. Maybe he’s in love.

-

Zayn is sitting with a giant book in his lap, smoking a long, thin joint between his aristocratic fingers. The candles are flickering, sending a pink glow to his cheeks when Liam finds him the next evening. It’s a Friday night, and Niall had invited him to go see Harry and Louis for the weekend at Louis’ university, but Liam had declined. Ruth is currently a hundred miles away on a Nun’s retreat and he couldn’t resist the chance to have the house by himself.

“Hi, Li,” Zayn smiles, his eyes squinting until all Liam can see is eyelash. Liam preens at the newly blossomed nickname, finding a creeping heat in his cheeks. “Grab a pillow, sit down with me.”

“No,” Liam says hurriedly, and then backtracks. “I mean, my sister isn’t home and I wondered - did you want to come over and eat? I mean, like, dinner. I could cook. Or we could order in. I mean, whatever. So, um, did you - ?”

Zayn laughs half-way through Liam’s pitiable ramble, ambling up and setting his joint on the ledge. He blows out the candles and gestures for Liam to lead the way down the staircase and kissing the back of his neck. Liam can hardly focus and his hands are so sweaty he has to keep rubbing them on his jeans. His school sweatshirt is suddenly too tight, nearly suffocating from the drawstrings around his neck, and his white tennis shoes are scuffed and childish when he looks down at them. The last thing he needs is to trip down a staircase and die a virgin.

Liam shows Zayn the house through the front, as if they were able to be on a proper date and he could take Zayn home after burgers and shakes like a normal couple. Instead, he holds out his arm, hoping Zayn will understand, but he does Liam one better when Zayn takes his hand, intertwining their fingers, their knuckles bumping together in an understated, quiet way. There was something so completely lovely about it Liam couldn’t help but fixate on it.

He sees his grandmother’s four floor home through Zayn’s eyes now; the short ceilings and the old, valuable pieces of European art, the dark and long hallways, the half-staircases to bathrooms and bedrooms, the long windows and the outdated drawing rooms. Zayn does not miss the tape on the floor, aligning the dining table in it’s place, or the cellophane on the fabrics. He runs his unoccupied hand along the spine of the couch, smiling to himself. If he finds Liam’s lifestyle laughable, he does not voice it.

“And this is my bedroom,” Liam has to jiggle the door handle a bit to open it, because the wood on the third floor sticks slightly. His room is tidy, with a full bed with tucked corners underneath a bay window overlooking the neighborhood, a closet, a dresser with a neat line of classic novels, and a vintage alarm clock. Zayn walks into the room, breathing in the musty air like even his shadow will disturb the stagnancy here. Liam watches, fascinated from the door. “It isn’t a lot, compared to you. Rather boring,” he excuses hurriedly, when it’s been quiet for too long.

Zayn spins around from where he was studying the books. “I like it. It’s different from me, but I like it. You have a phonograph and a record player! That’s quality right there, Li, pure quality.”

“Oh, yeah. My grandmother loved those things, so I got one of the older ones - probably not a lot of stuff you know, though.”

Zayn’s already flipping a record and placing the needle for it to spin. Goldmund’s _Threnody_ starts to tinker through the room, filling up all the crevices and corners and dips in Liam’s heart. His chest balloons. Zayn takes his hand, his smile so cheeky his eyes are crinkling again, the piece of blonde bang curling in his face.

“Are - are we dancing?” Liam sputters, nearly barking with laughter, and Zayn smiles again, giggling and nodding.

Liam’s other hand presses into the middle of Zayn’s back and they start to sway around his room in slow, unpracticed circles. Zayn smells like weed and sandalwood and every temptation Liam’s ever had. He is smoke in Liam’s lungs, clouding his organs and coating them with something new, thick, bright. Liam realizes if all love is like this and if so then is he alone in it or does everyone on the entire planet know that falling is exactly like this, just exactly so, but also like him, they are frozen with implication and heavy with fear and unable to speak a word about it.

“Hey,” Zayn murmurs, cheek brushing up against Liam’s jaw, “Where have you gone?”

“I’m right here,” he says, nonplussed.

“No, no,” Zayn smiles, like everything in the universe just delights him. He taps Liam’s forehead. “I meant up there.”

Liam takes a step back, dropping Zayn’s hand. Zayn’s smile disappears just as fast, but that isn’t what Liam wants at all. “I don’t think - “ Liam starts, before stalling his breath and regaining what little sanity remains. “I don’t think I know how to deal with what I feel for you. It’s like this balloon that keeps swelling, and every time I fear it will pop, and everything in the last month will completely disappear and -. And it’s scary. Really scary. Jesus, I don’t think I’ve actually even admitted that to myself.”

Zayn doesn’t smile, tugging on his sleeve. “There’s not need to be scared. It’s just me,” He explains, shrugging like it’s the simplest concept in the world. And it should be, but it’s not.

Liam laughs then. “Exactly. Exactly. It’s you. And that’s...” Liam surveys his terribly mundane room, craving pillows and purple walls and a collection of weird film festival movies, “I don’t know if I can survive it, but I want it. I want you. I want you so badly.”

Zayn blinks, eyes lidded and lips parted. “God damnit, Liam.”

Liam chuckles, curly hair falling into his face as he stares down at his scuffed, stupid tennis shoes. His eyes sting with too many emotions. He is ripe with embarrassment.

Instead of feeling the sting of rejection, the ice cold shower of shame and the retreating footsteps from Zayn, fleeing from the psychobabble that just occurred, he sees a hand. When he looks up, Zayn is holding it out to him, palm up, fingers apart, face expectant.

“Don’t get emotional, you tit!” Zayn laughs, grabbing Liam’s hand and pulling him from his bedroom. Liam’s face deeps to a darker shade of puce, if that was possible, and he hastily wipes at his eyes, catching any wetness.

“I wasn’t - “ Liam starts to protest, but finds it futile, following Zayn obediently out into the hall and down to the main floor.

They end up in Zayn’s bedroom, slightly damp from the nighttime rain outside. Zayn is looking at Liam like Liam has never been looked at before, and it sets his skin on fire.

“You’re bright pink,” Zayn murmurs, breath ghosting Liam’s cheek when he leans in, kissing his cheek and the corner of his lips.

“I can’t help it. I’m nervous,” Liam stammers, but it is honest.

Zayn chuckles, hands coming up to cup either side of Liam’s jaw. “Don’t be,” he says simply, “I won’t go anywhere you won’t go.”

-

They kiss for what seems like hours, standing first, with Zayn pulling insistently at Liam’s jaw, fingers cool to touch, bumping nose against nose and running his hands through his overgrown shock of dirty blonde hair. Liam is electric. He is aflame and static to every touch Zayn bestows.

Zayn spreads him out on his bed, neater than usual. He climbs over Liam, leaning down and kissing him, pressing his thumbs into Liam’s neck until they’re sore.

“Take this off, yeah?” he asks, pinching the jumper collar between his two fingers, eyes large and round and incredibly doe-like, and Liam nods like he’d dazed, like he can’t think of anything else except taking off his jumper right this moment so he can return to kissing Zayn. He’s never kissed like this before. His lips are bruised and sensitive to touch and he likes the way it feels entirely.

Zayn runs his fingers down Liam’s t shirt, around the breast pocket and then to the hem, finding the end and pushing up underneath it. Liam sits up on his elbows, following Zayn’s fingers as they trail up Liam’s flat stomach, finding freckles and the grooves of his undefined abs and making landmarks of them. Zayn is careful, never pushing too far or asking for too much at once. Liam appreciates it, because he is shaking with what might be or what might not be and it all swirls heavily in his gut like he is the hurricane and Zayn is the eye of it.

“You have beautiful skin, did you know that, Liam?” Zayn whispers. He looks Liam right in the eye when he says this, fingers circling a nipple now, hardening it into a nub, and making Liam flush. Liam can’t find himself to respond, anticipating too much where Zayn will touch him next. His shirt is pushed up to his armpits, and Zayn bends over to kissing the nipple, his lips slightly wet. Liam feels his head tip back between his shoulderblades, a shock of pleasure bypassing his bellybutton and straight to his groin. Zayn tugs at it with his teeth, ever so gently, and Liam’s legs clench together in reflex to prevent his already growing erection.

He pulls away, and Liam looks up, taking a deep breath. Zayn’s eyes are hooded and his mouth doesn’t have it’s normal laugh lines. It’s raining so hard outside Liam can barely think. “Don’t close your legs,” Zayn tells him, sliding down and pulling his kneecaps apart, running his hands up his thighs. They quiver. “Relax, Li. Tell me if you want to stop.”

“I don’t - “ Liam sounds choked, raspy, even more so than Zayn usually does, and he stops. “I want you to,” he leaves that statement open-ended because he has no actual idea what he wants Zayn to do. But Zayn does. Zayn’s hands reach up and cup the jumping muscles of Liam’s abdomen, walking his fingers through Liam’s happy trail, and lastly, finding the button on his jeans. Liam lifts his hips to help slide them off, even without thinking so, because his body wants this, his heart does, and his brain is too muddled and too fond to even bother resisting.

Zayn is fascinated, it seems, with Liam’s skin and Liam’s muscle, and the thought of that genuine fascination, this curious adoration for him makes Liam blush, not just the surface of his skin, but the layers of his skin, his muscle, his bones, until his whole body is tingling with embarrassing want. Zayn cups the back of Liam’s calf, moving it up on the bed until his foot is flat on the mattress, settling between his hips. He looks up at Liam with a dazed, lustful gaze, pressing a kiss to Liam’s kneecap. It is the most intimate moment Liam has ever known.

He kisses Liam again and again, up his thigh, on the inside of his thigh, until his leg meets his hip, biting at the bone there and licking a path up along Liam’s adonis cut. The hand that is not pressing on his knee to keep Liam’s legs apart comes up to stroke him through his pants, and Liam’s eyes squeeze shut automatically.

“Hey,” Zayn kisses Liam’s bottom lip, “Don’t shut down. We can stop.”

“Wait,” Liam grabs his wrist to keep him from pulling away, from stopping. “Keep going.”

Liam wants to say, _but can we please go no farther than this_ , and wonders if he can use his I’ve never done anything like this before excuse again because he can’t think about sex and he can’t think about Zayn blowing him and he can’t think about all the things he wants so badly right this moment. It’s too much and his brain might explode. He leans up to kiss Zayn, sucking on his top lip and hoping it will bury his fears. Zayn’s eyes close and Liam knows this because he can feel the flutter of his lashes.

Zayn’s hand trails down Liam’s stomach again, palming him through his underwear just slightly, and Liam sighs against it, because this is okay, this is good, and he can do this. Zayn starts to stroke him, along the shaft and then down towards the head, kissing Liam’s mouth and swirling his tongue in a way that is both tantalizing and incredibly distracting. There is a hot, hot heat pooling in Liam’s stomach, one that is uncontrollable like forest fire, one he cannot fathom to control. It licks at his insides and sears his blood, all the way down to his toes. He feels himself bucking into Zayn’s hand in small increments, and Zayn adds more pressure, pressing his kneel to the wet spot pooling in Liam’s boxers, until Liam’s thighs are absolutely shaking, and his hips are nearly off the bed, pressed into Zayn’s palm. Liam is panting, panting until he can’t kiss anymore, breathing into Zayn’s neck as Zayn sucks a bruise into the junction where his neck meets his shoulder.

“Oh my god,” he whimpers, and he can feel Zayn nodding, rubbing harder and harder, until the friction becomes too much, too fast, and Liam lets out a small, strangled cry as his vision turns hazy and he comes.

They breathe together, listless and boneless on top of each other, Liam sticky and Zayn sweaty. It isn’t until Zayn curls up next to him that he feels an incessant pressure on his hip. He colors again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t...” he trails off, too embarrassed to finish his sentence.

Zayn shrugs, “Don’t worry about it, Li. You have given me enough wank material from just tonight that you will have repaid me indefinitely.”

“Oh god,” Liam laughs, burying his face in hands. “I cannot believe you would actually wank to thought of me.”

Zayn smiles cheekily, “Indeed. You’re quite sexy, neighbor boy, when you want to be.”

-

Liam wears a pair of Zayn’s boxers, lavender with tiny yellow sailboats on them and they brush their teeth together, standing side by side. Liam insists on flossing, and Zayn laughs at him good naturedly, his head resting on Liam’s shoulder and blinking tiredly as Liam flosses each tooth. As the night goes on, second by second, Zayn is more and more lethargic.

Liam presses Zayn’s limbs into bed as he folds in on himself, blinking up at him with owlish brown eyes and smiling, a deliriously tired edge to his lips. Liam crawls in next to him, cupping Zayn’s hands with his own and blowing on them. They’re always so cold.

“How much have you slept in the last few days?” Liam whispers.

Zayn shrugs. “Not much.”

“Why is it so hard for you to sleep?”

Zayn looks at him then, nodding his head closer and breathing mint all over Liam’s mouth. He’s silent. Then, “Sometimes, when you’re not here, the yelling is so loud I think the windows must begin to shake.”

His heart cringes, and Liam’s eyes furrow in worry, but Zayn’s hands unthread themselves out of his grasp and smooth away the lines in his forehead. He is still smiling, even amidst the confession, looking at Liam like he might be the sweetest thing in the universe. It is the loveliest and saddest sight Liam has ever seen, and he cannot look away.

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Liam. There are so many more terrible things to be sorry about.” Zayn yawns, and by nudging his nose into Liam’s neck, promptly falls asleep.

-

They sleep for nearly eleven hours. It’s morning, not early, but early enough. Liam’s shoulders are chilled because the comforter is tucked around his waist, and Zayn is curled into the fetal position on the edge of the bed, sweat beading at the top of his spine. Liam knows because he rolls over, pressing his torso to Zayn’s back like plaster, kissing the top knob of his vertebrae.

Zayn rolls over after a few minutes, unfurling his legs and tangling them in between Liam’s ankles, scratching his stomach. He blinks a few times, his nose shiny. “Good morning,” his voice is raspy.

Liam smiles, giddy for reasons unknown. There is sunshine in his veins. He cups Zayn’s stubbly cheek, kissing it, kissing his nose, his chapped lips, his morning breath. “Hi. Morning.”

“S’too early to be so awake,” Zayn snorts, rolling closer, brushing back Liam’s unruly head of hair. “I wanted to ask you - was that your first time doing something like that last night?”

Liam pauses, “I - yes. It wasn’t as if I could bring a lot of fit blokes home with my grandmother.”

Zayn smiles. “Yeah, of course. Not that there are many fit blokes in this town anyway.”

“What was your first time like?” Liam asks, smoothing the elegant line of Zayn’s eyebrow with the pad of his finger. “Was it all roses and mood music?” he teases gently.

“I wish - but it was as unromantic as you could get. I was fifteen and I got really drunk back in Bradford, and there was this guy who took me home. And I wanted candles and cuddling and eyelid kisses and handholding but all I got was his cock and twenty quid for the ride home.”

Zayn is stiff in Liam’s arms, staring blankly at the ceiling. Liam feels cold and stuck in place, the edges of Zayn’s voice cutting through his brain like jagged glass shards. He can think of nothing to say, except, “I’m sorry he did that to you.”

He shrugs again, murmuring, “I’m sorry I did that to me. Last night I told you I’d never go anywhere you didn’t want to go. And I mean that, Liam. One hundred percent.”

“Okay,” Liam kisses his cheek, feeling the minuscule stubble on his lower jaw. He smells like sleep and sandalwood incense and Liam noses at the delicate tissue underneath his eye. “Thank you.”

Zayn smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

-

Fall melts into Winter and Liam’s cross country season is coming to end. He can say goodbye to orange and red leaves, now drowning in gutters and browning with decay, and the sometimes-sunshine, and the crisp air every evening when he runs. Eventually, Niall’s mum will stop sending him to school with a thermos of apple cider and starting sending hot chocolate instead. It also means Ruth will start holding her bible study in the evenings at the house, and her impenetrable eye will be on Liam at all times.

He sees Zayn by accident one day in the grocer, trailing Ruth along the aisles as she picks out dinner items for the next evening. The sisters were coming in for a Bingo round and a fundraiser discussion, and Ruth had already requested for Liam to be present and make good face. Ruth was under the impression that Liam was just as religious as she was, and it made his blood boil. Nevertheless, a content Ruth was a much easier one to deal with than the Ruth he knew to scorn those against her God. He wonders if Zayn would think him a coward. He wonders if Zayn knows anyone as terrifying as Liam’s sister.

They’re in the frozen meat section when Mrs. Malik’s cart passes Ruth’s, who smiles tightly and grips the basket handle so tightly her knuckles are waxy white. This does not go unnoticed by Liam, who is trying to hide his smile and is blushing so darkly he knows he must be a beet. Zayn sneaks a small smile, and a two fingered wave as they pass, but they say no more. Liam feels like a too-clever child in hiding, and he’s not sure if he likes that feeling.

It’s the first time he’s ever felt unadulterated pride by knowing Zayn since meeting him - and it blooms in his bloodstream while Ruth is perusing the frozen vegetables, muttering darkly underneath her breath - because Zayn is so stunning attractive, and normally it sparks Liam just a bit; but this time, in the supermarket, underneath fluorescent lights and during the daytime, Zayn is nearly classical in his beauty, his symmetrical face and his thick eyelashes, the neat curve of his jaw. He is fucking breathtaking. Liam is blindsided.

Generally when Liam sees him, he’s in cuffed, coffee and tea and ink stained chinos, or a pair of too loose sweatpants, worn out in the knees, and his hair is undone, and his t-shirt is too stretched around the neck, and Zayn wears his glasses as his eyes blink up owlishly at Liam, an identical vision seen so many times before. Liam categorizes what Zayn was wearing as they bypass sugar cereals to the oatmeal; navy tailored pants, and white chuck taylors, clean and unblemished so unlike the ones that Liam wears, and a white shirt buttoned to the top. He looked like privilege, like everyone else in their pretentious neighborhood, but not only that. He looked fit.

Liam shakes his head at his inner thoughts. Of course Zayn is fit, he’s always known that since he met the boy on the balcony, three months ago, but - well. He was not expecting it.

When he gets home, he helps Ruth put away groceries and then he masturbates in his shower to the thought of Zayn in those neat trousers until he nearly sees stars through all the steam.

 

-

He gets a text from Zayn that reads, ‘come ovr, got smthng to show u x’  and Liam is already preparing to throw his book bags down and sneak out the back before he has to report for dinner with his sister and the nuns, but instead of hearing the usual sounds of Ruth cooking in their grandiose kitchen, there is the grandfather clock ticking on the wall and an eerie, decaying silence. It sets his bones on edge.

“Ruth?” Liam calls out in the parlor, walking past the formal dining room into the kitchen nook. She’s sitting there, stone faced, her fingers creased around a stack of documents spread on the table, a bible on her knee. “Hey, where are the sisters?”

“Had to cancel. Terribly sorry I did so. But I got something in the mail today, Liam. Do you know what I received today?”

“No, I don’t know,” Liam hedges, feeling a tickle go up his spine.  “What is it?”

Ruth’s bottom row of teeth peek out of her mouth, dragging along her top lip, jaw flexing. “The will. Grandmum’s will. I read through it.”

“Oh,” Liam stutters. “That’s nice then.”

Ruth cocks her head to the side, still not looking directly at Liam. His gut is churning, millions of thoughts swirling in his brain. He hasn’t seen Ruth this wound up since he was twelve, and he had broken the cable to her computer by accident. Later that evening, his pet rabbit Jack, was found dead in his cage. Liam still doesn’t want to connect the two.

“I don’t know if that’s the proper term for it. Nice, isn’t it, seeing as Grandmum left you the house, and an inheritance, and a university fund. Did you know that? She left you nearly everything, and you aren’t even her biological grandson.”

“I’m sorry - I - what do you mean? Course I am.” Liam protests, head still grasping on inheritance and house and university.

Ruth smiles scathingly, standing up and shaking the papers at Liam’s face. Her usually pale face is splotchy with anger. “Mum was a whore by the time she had you, and Dad had left us to waste long before you could even be possibly conceived. I did the math. You’re my half-brother, Liam, and that means you’re not a blood descendant to Grandmum. You’re not worthy of the ancestry that you don’t even understand.”

“You’re lying,” Liam protests, “That’s not possibly true.”

“It’s a _sin_ to lie,” Ruth sneers. “You would know that if you were a proper Christian, not making friends with the dirty Muslims next door.”

“They’re not - hold on, how - how Christian is it for you to condemn those different from you? I was taught that God loved all, and here you are, such a narrow minded _racist_ \- “ Liam’s protest is caught off when a large, blunt object hits his cheekbone and eye. He blinks against the impact, and feels his eye sting when he comes into contact briefly with paper. There’s a sharp burning sensation on his cheek, and when he reaches up to touch it, his fingers come away damp with blood.

Ruth is still holding the bible, breathing harshly with eyes alight and on fire. “Don’t you dare doubt my faith to God. Don’t you dare defend those people who you don’t even know.”

“My fucking God, Ruth, you’ve just attacked me with a bible,” Liam roars over her, and manages to dart out of the way for the second swing, but comes into full collision with the third, and it nearly dazes him, hitting him squarely in the nose. He can taste the blood in his mouth before he even feels the throbbing pain.

Ruth is seething, hitting Liam around his face and neck until he’s crouched into a ball, hands on the back of his neck to protect it. Blood is filling his mouth and clotting in his nose, until he can barely breathe, dust from the hardwood floors filling his lungs with every inhale he takes.

It stops. She must have only hit him six or seven times, but his skin is puckered pink and his heart is heavy, beating like a hummingbird trapped inside his wire rib cage. He looks up at her, feeling the hot swell of a bruise underneath his eye. “I am your brother. We are family. Why are you hurting me?” Liam is pleading, his voice cracking. He is at a loss.

“You’re the son of a whore. You are the bastard child of this family.” Ruth spits at him, “You deserve nothing of what Grandmum has given you, do you understand? Nothing. God sees through you and your sins, Liam, and unless you repent, you are not to be Forgiven.”

-

The grandfather clock chimes. Liam picks himself off his grandmother’s kitchen floor, rounding up his school bags and depositing them into his bedroom. He’s late, and his teeth hurt around his sore gums, his nose bubbling with snot and blood every few seconds. His eye is so chafed that he can hardly keep it open. He doesn’t look in the mirror, not wanting to see his face and the damage his sister has done.

Sinner.

Instead, he wipes at the caked blood and changes into his pajamas. Brushes his teeth, gingerly, even though he has not eaten. His muscles are wrought from cross country and heartache.

He doesn’t cry, touching his face in the mirror, the amber wall lamp creating a sallow cast on his purpling skin. There’s an ache in his body. A very quiet, trapped sort of terror; one that threatens to press upon his lungs until he can’t shush this feeling anymore. Sinner.

The moment breaks. He packs his night bag and his school bag, slings them over his arm and tiptoes down through the backyard. When he climbs the staircase to Zayn’s balcony, it’s empty. The sliding glass door is unlocked, but there is no Zayn inside. The bed is made.

Liam places his bags next to the door and aligns his shoes neatly next to them, as if the balance of the room will be disturbed if he inflicted himself on it. He pads to Zayn’s bathroom, washing his face with the lights off, pees, and then crawls into bed.

The sheets are cold, which is normal, but the scent of Zayn is faded and faint; if Liam digs his face into the pillow, he’s sure he could smell it like a memory, but he doesn’t. His nose is still throbbing and probably swollen. He closes his eyes, clutching a pillow and curling his knees to his chest.

(If I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take).

-

He isn’t sure how long Zayn’s been sitting next to him, hip and thigh pressed against his back, but when he wakes, it’s still night. Liam had gone to sleep relatively early, at least by dinner time. The sky outside is purple, and Zayn’s room is still dark.

“What happened to you?” Zayn croaks. He sounds so incredibly tired. Like his voice has been burnt and frayed. “I was out with my mother all day, and I come home, and I find you like this.”

Liam sits up, taking careful note not to rub his bruised eye. He feels so exhausted still. When he looks at Zayn properly, since seeing him in the grocer, he is still so beautiful, but his eyes are wide and red-rimmed with insomnia. He looks dark, mosaic even, like somewhere along the line his flawless skin cracked and led to tiny broken pieces. It’s ironic that Liam is here with a bent in face, and Zayn is the one who is sitting so still and so fragile that if Liam reaches out to touch him, he might shatter. All of a sudden, he’s scared.

 

“The final copy of the will was delayed, and so now it’s been finally sent. My grandmother left me everything, which is wonderful, but my sister Ruth didn’t take it so well.”

“Your sister did this to you, Liam?” Zayn asks incredulously.

“She has quite the temper,” Liam swallows, “She hit me with a bible.”

Zayn frowns. “Why are you laughing? It isn’t funny.”

Liam snorts, and then touches his nose gingerly when it starts to throb again. “It is sort of. She’s so devout and all that, and so naturally her weapon of choice is her doctrine.”

Zayn cracks a smile, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe she did this.”

“My mom was forced to give us up - I was adopted by my grandmother, but Ruth was sent to foster care. I never saw much of her until she was twelve, and by then...she was already the way she was.” Liam doesn’t tell Zayn what Ruth told him about his father. He’s not sure he wants to accept that. It’d be much easier to pretend otherwise and bury his heartache. It’d be much easier to forget.

Before Zayn says anything more, Liam reaches over and brushes his hair back from his forehead. “You look so tired,” he comments on the rings of navy blue underneath Zayn’s eyes.

Zayn nods heavily. “I am. I couldn’t sleep last night. Not all day either.”

Liam nods, “Come here.”

So Zayn does. He doesn’t lecture about Liam’s face, his cut lip, his bloodshot eye, the bruises. He folds himself in Liam’s arms, smothering his face into his neck and breathing in deeply like he’s just come home. Liam wraps his arms around Zayn’s torso, hands roaming around his shoulder blade, his elbow, the joints in his wrists. He is mostly sharp, bony angles. Liam is not used to such a structure, as he has been broadened by athletics, sinewy leg muscles from distance running, thicker ropes on his shoulders from swimming. He has not felt his own bones in years. He has not searched for them.

“We’ll sleep for days if we have to,” Liam murmurs, Zayn curling his knees up into Liam’s side as they lie down, blankets drawn to their noses. “We’ll never leave this bed if we can prevent it. For months. Years. Ages.”

“Mmm,” Zayn hums, “When I’m properly awake, I’m going to take care of you, Li.”

“Go to sleep, Zayn.” he whispers. And Zayn does.

-

Zayn has Liam in a vice grip, limbs like octopus tentacles wrapped around his body when he wakes up. It’s not even bright out yet, the sky outside a hazy, pretty mauve and Liam blinks against his sleep mouth and his eye crusties, feeling moulded into the bed and nearly crushed by Zayn’s hold.

“Ow,” Liam mutters under his breath, pulling his arms out. “I can’t move.”

“That’s the point,” Zayn’s voice is surprising clear for how he usually sounds in the morning: like rust grown in his throat overnight. Then Liam realizes why; he’s well rested.

He cocks an eyebrow, Zayn’s messy bed hair tickling his cheek. “What’s the point?”

Zayn smothers his mouth along Liam’s neck, down to his shoulder, teeth nipping against the bone. He’s quiet for a moment, eyelashes blinking against his skin. Then he says, “Don’t go back home.”

“Zayn,” Liam pulls away to look down at Zayn, “I can’t live here forever with you.”

He didn’t think it was possible for him to hold him tighter, but he does. “But I need you. And I don’t want you around your sister. I can tell you believed every word she said about you. I can feel your hesitancy when I touch you. I can feel it now.”

“She doesn’t have that kind of effect on me. No one does.”

“Everyone does,” Zayn argues, “We’re all made up of things people have said to us, or about us, we’re all chipped and decayed in some places. She’s rotten for what she’s done to you. And your face.”

Liam feels his breath caught in his throat, dry air making him feel parched, as he stares blankly at the ceiling. There are green, glow in the dark plastic stars stuck to it. “But she will never be able to keep me away from you.”

“Li, she doesn’t know there’s a me and a you. She knows me as one of the Muslims next door, and she already condemns me for it.”

“I - ,” Liam is at a lost for words, “I know you think it isn’t the right thing to do, but Ruth is all I have right now. If it weren’t for her, I’d be in the foster system. And worst things could be done to me.”

Zayn nuzzles his nose into Liam’s neck, his skin lukewarm and perfect. “S’not fair,” he mumbles.

Liam sighs, finally gaining enough ground to roll them over, bracketing Zayn between his biceps. He kisses Zayn’s forehead, then his upper lip, pressing every line of his body down against him. They’re both so warm, but the air around them is chilled and drafty, their little blanket abode like a cocoon. “Nothing is ever fair or good,” Liam mutters into a low voice, kissing along the line of Zayn’s jawline.

Zayn’s eyes sparkle, “‘Cept you.”

“Cheesy,” Liam giggles, “So very cheesy.”

He shrugs, tugging Liam down closer, hips widening and legs coming to wrap around Liam’s waist, their groins finally slotting together proper and Liam swears the heat is nearly intoxicating.

“S’true, though.” Zayn smiles, biting on Liam’s upper lip. Zayn tastes like sleep and salt, something not completely unappealing, and Liam kisses him without chaste, this time. He wants to taste his teeth.

Zayn arches up into him, responsive as ever, hands snaking underneath Liam’s armpits and pressing along the muscles of his back, pressing him closer. Liam is hard, the combined morning wood and Zayn’s slight grind up into his groin causing his eyes to fall shut. His foot trails down the back of Liam’s calf, egging him on, bringing him closer.

They shift, perceptively, as Liam rocks down on Zayn, or Zayn archs back up in Liam, his hips stuttering on their own, knocking knees and elbows together as they try and tangle closer. Zayn’s mouth tastes like nothing except Liam and spit now, and Liam’s lips are so swollen because he’s kissing like his life depends on it. If this is lust, Liam thinks dimly as Zayn bites on his collarbone again, then I have been consumed by it entirely.

“Here, let’s -” Zayn says hurriedly, breaking away from Liam’s mouth to pull on the waistband of his boxer shorts,  down over Liam’s bum. He pulls his own down, pants with tiny red rockets on them, down off one leg so they loop around his ankle. There’s a gather of precum at the tip of Liam’s dick, and Zayn pushes at it, his other hand pulling guiding Liam so they slide together.

Liam groans, he can’t help it; the wet slide and Zayn’s skin are so hot in completely different ways, and it feels like there is this fiery, pulsating heat - stronger than last time, stirring in his lower belly, his abdominal muscles contracting each time he angles up, pressing against Zayn’s dick and his hip. Even his toes are clenching and unclenching, like every bit of his body is hardwired to respond to how Zayn will touch him next.

A bead of sweat gathers on Zayn’s forehead as he reaches up and kisses Liam, his hand trailing down between their two bodies and sliding their dicks together with a steady wrist, tipping his jaw to a severe angle so Liam can kiss at the skin there, lips parted obscenely. Liam can feel his body pull like a taut string, tighter and tighter until he feels himself tipping over the edge.

“Zayn,” he whispers hurriedly, finding it profound how his name sounds coming from Liam’s mouth right now, and Zayn opens his eyes, nodding feverishly, begging Liam to keep going with a steady stream of mewling, hips jerking into Liams until it’s only bone and skin and Liam comes, harder than he has to date, pressing up against Zayn’s sweaty skin. Liam’s hand, if on instinct, finds Zayn’s cock, still aching against his stomach and redder this time, giving him a few pulls until Zayn is nodding with his mouth open, even though he isn’t speaking. Liam’s hand is warm and soaked with come when Zayn falls back, sated like he’s made of jelly.

Zayn uses a discarded t-shirt near his bed to mop up most of the come between them, rolling back towards Liam and nudging his shoulder with the tip of his nose. “Don’t go.”

“I have to,” Liam mumbles, ignoring the urge to agree with Zayn despite his responsibilities of school. “But not yet.”

The sun won’t properly rise for perhaps another half hour, and it isn’t much, but Liam will take it.

-

The school day passes in a slow blur, and Liam can hardly remember his first period class even though he thought it was never going to end.

“Hey, Liam - wow, what happened to you, mate?” Niall stops midtrack, a sandwich in one hand and a thermos in another.

Liam smiles, even though he aches it bit when he crinkles his eyes, “Was night running and got run off the road by a car. Arsehole didn’t even stop,” He does not take a moment to evaluate how easily that lie came to him. Niall considers it for a second, and maybe he does catch the pleading in Liam’s eyes, because he shrugs and says,

“Bad luck, that. You coming around after school for some homecooked special and Fifa?”

Liam backpedals. He promised Zayn he would see him right after school, if at all possible between practice and homework and avoiding his sister. “I don’t know, maybe.”

A wrinkle forms between Niall’s eyebrows. “Where do you keep disappearing to? I swear we haven’t hung out properly since - “ he cuts himself off, wincing, and Liam is good at filling in the blanks by now. Since your grandmum croaked.

He feels incredibly guilty all of a sudden. “Sorry. I’m really sorry. It’s just, I’ve met someone. Like, I’m dating someone. Or something.”

Niall doesn’t have the decency to close his mouth, gaping in surprise with half-chewed chicken salad on his tongue. Liam looks around the cafeteria, as if everyone was about to turn around and laugh at him. Finally, Niall swallows and speaks.

 

“You’ve...met someone? Like some bird I don’t know about?”

Liam winces, feeling his cheeks flush hotly. “He’s not a bird.”

“He?” Niall sputters, eyes going wide, “But Ruth and her -”

“Exactly,” Liam cuts him off grimly. “Exactly.”

Niall regards him quietly for a moment, staring down sadly at his sandwich for a good few minutes. Then he looks up, blond hair tucked underneath his snapback and falling into his eyes. “So it wasn’t a car then. I mean, Ruth was the car that ran you off the road, so to speak. Your sister is hardcore, mate, but I never thought...”

Liam shrugs helplessly, but Niall doesn’t seem angry about the lie - more so agitated that all of this has been kept from him. And the guilt gets worse.  “We didn’t row about that, actually, but I’m sorry,” he offers lamely, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just felt like...like it wasn’t worth mentioning. We’re all so busy with different things, all the time. I didn’t think it was important.”

“You’re important, Liam.” Niall mutters darkly, “Jesus, you’ve always got this self-hating complex where you think no one cares if you’re doing okay. Look, arsehole, I care, and you can always tell me. Or Harry, or even ring Louis at his big ole uni.”

Liam slumps forward. “I’ve been a shit friend.”

“A complete tosser, in my opinion,” Niall agrees. “But after your gran passed, I think you had a reason to be.”

“You still don’t deserve to be slighted.” Liam argues pointlessly. Niall shrugs, taking another bite of his sandwich.

“I better get to meet this guy at some point. Make sure he’s treating you right and all that. And he better be pretty, you know, or Lou will show him straight to the door.”

Liam laughs for the first time all day, and tries to ignore the sting, “You’ll meet him soon, hopefully. And Louis will do no such thing. He’s all talk.”

“That he is,” Niall says gravely, before laughing and nearly spewing chicken salad sandwich everywhere.

-

Liam is sweaty from practice and wet from the rain as he walks home, his running shoes soggy and covered in debris. Dirt is splashed up his thighs and calves like artfully flicked paint, a leaf stuck to the inside of his ankle. All he can think about is chicken noodle soup and a hot cup of tea and Zayn curled around him, pointing out his favorite parts of a movie until he falls asleep and Liam can already picture himself getting some of his homework done, propping his text book up on his knees while Zayn breathes hotly into his neck, unconscious and dreaming something faraway.

Instead, Liam finds Zayn’s room in it’s usually state of “messy organized”, as Zayn likes to call it - and no Zayn. The door is closed, like usual, and Liam nearly jumps three feet in the air when he hears an eruption of shouting a few rooms down.

“Quick,” Zayn falls out of his closet, and Liam hurries over, shucking his tennis shoes and throwing them out into the balcony. “You shouldn’t be here, Li.”

It’s crowded and musky with Zayn’s scent in the closet, and Liam is wet and bothered, cramped into a tiny space. His back hurts from crouching. “What’s going on?”

“My parents are fighting.” Zayn sighs, “They usually wait until they think I’m asleep to do this.”

“I’m sorry,” Liam says, inspite of himself. “I mean, that’s terrible that they’re arguing.”

“They always do,” Zayn says sullenly, “No one is ever really happy in this house.”

Liam knows exactly what he means. He finds Zayn’s hand in the dark, latching onto it and playing with his fingers, warm and dry unlike Liam’s own frosty ones. He holds Zayn’s hands between his own palms, bringing them up to his mouth and kissing his fingers. Zayn is sixteen years old and he’s hiding in his closet while his parents argue, and Liam understands completely.

Their voices sound like cyanide and broken virtue even through the walls, harsh and making him cringe as their voices reach octaves only found in high up in the heavens. Every time he thinks it’s going to end, it doesn’t. A glass breaks, and Zayn closes his eyes, biting against his lip and Liam, wet and soggy as he is, crowds in against him, pressing their cheeks and their foreheads together, Liam’s wet fringe leaving residue on Zayn’s skin. Their kisses are feathery light and full of reassurance, Zayn pressing for answers, and Liam unable to give any.

Liam starts to hum a _Lana Del Rey_ song Zayn usually plays on a loop, and Zayn closes his eyes, chewing on his thumbnail. They both wait for the storm to dissipate.

It doesn’t.

-

Liam doesn’t stay over, even though he told Zayn he would. Instead, he waits for Zayn to fall asleep, curled into his usual ball at the corner of the bed, Liam plastered to his back and nosing at his hairline. He can still hear talking, even though it echos from downstairs, and the words he picked up through their fighting sent chills down his spine. Ruth may have bruised him, but she has never broken his ribcage with her words like Zayn’s parents do. Liam feels old and soft and overripe, like a peach someone left behind.

His shoes are ruined out on the balcony, and he chucks them in the bin on the way into his grandmother’s house. There is dinner in the fridge covered in sticky film, which Liam takes to his bedroom. He eats, finishes a maths worksheet and skips out on his reading for history. He can wikipedia it later - something he always stoutly refused to do before recently.

Instead, he showers, checking the progress on his eye and his lip, licking at the newly formed scab, rubbing his unscatched eye as it would solve the sagging tiredness he feels. He doesn’t bother to masturbate, even though the memories of their morning together could easily fuel him - a hazy lavender morning that seems so far away from the drama this afternoon brought him.

He’s in bed for maybe ten minutes when the bedroom door opens, a sliver of gold light cutting through the room. His blankets move, and  Ruth slides in next to him. He can smell her baby powder perfume and her tiny, chaffed fingers against his shoulder.

“Liam,” she whispers, “Liam, I’m so sorry. I’ve gone to God and asked for his forgiveness. I have committed so many wrongs against you.”

Her voice is stricken and taut as she whispers into his shoulder. Liam feels his gut clench, past feigning sleep. He has never heard Ruth speak in this manner for some years. She begins to weep against his shoulder blade.

“Ruth,” he shushes her, turning around and touching her elbow. “Don’t cry, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, baby brother. I’ve been so cruel. I just wish you wouldn’t sin so much against our God, and I wouldn’t...I wouldn’t have to ask for forgiveness,” she whimpers, her face a blotchy shade of red even in the dim light of Liam’s room.  Tears slip over her nose and into his pillow.

“Please don’t make this about punishment, Ru,” he pleads, “Let’s move past all this. We don’t have to hate each other.”

“I don’t hate you. I’ve always loved you. Everyones always loved you so much, Liam, and I always wished...I always wanted to be the favorite. But I wasn’t. And you suffered for it. Last night I prayed to God that you could find it in yourself to forgive me, and I asked him to guide you towards a better, more Christian place in your heart.”

“I’m sure he knows how much you love me, deep down,” Liam swallows thickly, anger and sadness tangled in his chest. It swells and chokes him. He hopes she can’t hear his passive rage in his voice. He shakes with it. “Everything will be okay between us, and God will see that.”

“Even though you have a sinner’s heart, Liam, you are still so good to me. You are made of pure light, do you know that? We studied angels in bible group and I kept thinking to myself, that is just like my baby brother. Please be that boy again.”

“No more crying,” Liam tells her again, wiping her face. “No more anger. You’re all I have left.”

“I’m your’s,” Ruth says simply, running her fingers through Liam’s hair until he falls asleep.

-

Liam wakes up in the morning and realizes it’s winter nearly. The summer sadness dissipated, and the grief fall had brought with the death of his grandmother has dwindled to a small thudding deep within the caverns of his heart, where he rarely goes to look. Instead, a much larger pain has sprung, starting in his abdomen and spreading through his organs like wildfire. _Is it possible for two people to fall in love?_

Because Liam has fallen in love with the way Zayn sleeps, even though it’s rare. And the giddy face he gets when he puts on a record Liam’s never heard, eyes at half-mass in pure joy. And drinking Dr. Stuart’s peppermint tea until it stains his teeth, or telling Liam that he’s smart or talented or good looking and Liam can just tell by looking at him that Zayn honestly believes those things. And the way that Liam’s heart sticks to the inside of his ribcage when Zayn touches him, and asks permission to push boundaries, and Zayn’s dog eared books and his recorded television shows and his instant dinners. Liam has fallen in love with Zayn because he’s become a regular fixture, a consistency in a tiny town in middle england where love doesn’t exist, certainly not love like this, and suddenly every morning is stunning, even with Liam crouched over his bedside in pain, overwhelmed with delight in his utter misfortune of falling so hard.

Is it possible for two people to fall in love?

Yes. Yes.

-

Zayn has a box of cupcakes and a bong nestled in his lap, sitting just inside the balcony door and blowing smoke out into the rain. All his pillows and blankets that he usually keeps are sitting underneath the ledge, miraculously untouched by the watershed.

“Li,” he chirps, eyes crinkly and voice like cotton, “You’re here.”

“I am,” Liam smiles, plopping down next to him, their knees knocking together.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Zayn giggles. Liam takes off his tennis shoes and places them inside so they don’t mold like the pair he ruined a couple weeks ago.

“I think you’re a little high,” Liam says, raising an eyebrow. Zayn shrugs, still smiling. It starts to thunder in the middle afternoon. “How’d your day go? Go out with your mum earlier?”

Zayn is close with his mother, to an extent, and generally sides with her when his parents argue. He calls his father ‘The Doctor’ and rarely speaks to him, as far as Liam knows. He’s always wondered why their relationship is barely threaded together, held by silk string, but he’s always been to scared to ask. The ideas of Zayn being hurt enough that he feels the need to shun his father are fertile and disturbing in his mind.

He shrugs, “Nah. She went out early with my aunts, Pilates or something, and then brought home these for me. I’m almost done with my school year,” he rustles the box of cupcakes, and then holds out a red velvet one for Liam.

“But it’s nearly Christmas! How can you be done?”

“Because I can do my assignments whenever I want at whatever pace I want. It’s easy. I just complete the packets, read, study, etcetera.”

“Do you want to do normal school, though?” Liam asks, thinking about how lonely it would be if he didn’t have Niall to sit by every day at lunch, smelling of homemade food and shower gel, or Harry to mess around with in Language class. Not for the first time, he wonders if Zayn is incredibly lonely.

“My last school in Bradford didn’t end so well. After...that night that I got drunk, I just got terribly depressed. So when my dad got relocated here, I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to deal with anyone anymore.” Zayn smiles, but it’s crooked and wry. “Looking back, I’ve been a terrible coward. But at least I’m almost done with school.”

Liam reaches out to touch Zayn’s hand, leaning on the carpet. “I don’t think you’re a coward for wanting to get school over with. And I wish that bloke hadn’t done what he did to you.”

Zayn’s eyes fluttered close for a second, and he places his bong and lighter away from his lap next to his cupcakes. Liam’s lips are sugary sweet with cream cheese frosting when he presses his lips up against Zayn’s temple.

“I had lost a lot of hope until I met you,” Zayn murmurs into Liam’s jumper. “I thought I would be tainted forever.”

“You’ll never be touched like that again,” Liam protests, forever chanting in his brain like a very soft lullaby. He kisses Zayn’s cheeks, holding his shoulders in his grip like he’s a ragdoll, and Zayn’s head dips back, exposing his throat, legs tangled together on the carpet. Liam lowers him all the way to the ground, crawling over him and kissing him again.

“How you make me feel like this, Liam Payne, I will never know,” Zayn mutters serenely, looking at Liam through his lashes, a small twinkle of a smile on his face. His hands reach out and beckon Liam to come closer. “Kiss me, now.”

Liam abides, and their kisses become more urgent, Liam pressing a leg between Zayn’s thighs, rolling his tea stained t shirt up and over his head, kissing his chest and over his belly button, nosing at the tiny hairs there and giggling when Zayn squirms. Their trousers are kicked off as they stubbornly cling to ankles, laughing when Liam has to bend over to shuck them. Zayn stands up, grabbing Liam’s hand and pulling them into a heap of limbs and mouths, falling sideways on his mattress, fumbling for Liam’s jumper and t shirt.

Liam hopes he never gets over the feeling of skin against skin, because it feels so good every time he touches Zayn, or Zayn touches him, and he just wants to be consumed by the contented heat of their bodies flushed together. Knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder, and beneath all the muscle and the tissue, somewhere deep down, their heart lines overlap and tangle together.

Zayn bites at his shoulder, then his collarbone, tongue laving at the dents his teeth have made, rolling them over so he’s straddling Liam, bending down and pushing his curls away from his forehead. Liam is suddenly so very hard, dick tenting his boxer and he uses his heels for leverage to ride up every time Zayn grinds down on him, kissing messily with teeth, his fingers twirling  between Liam’s overgrown curls.

“I - “ Liam chokes, “I want to see - “ he pleads, fumbling at Zayn’s waistband. Zayn pulls away, rolling to his side and shimming out of his boxers. Liam swallows, looking at Zayn’s cock bump against his hip.

“Can I touch you?” Liam asks, mindful of the conversation they just had and Zayn simply smiles, nodding to him, teeth tucked between his lip. Liam’s fingers are sticky with precum as he presses against his shaft, moving back up and flicking his wrist at the tip, just like he does to himself in the shower, steam smothering every inhale, scalding hot water pinching his skin - being with Zayn feels almost exactly like that.

“You can fuck me, too, if you want,” Zayn parts, slowing Liam’s hand and peering up at him. Liam feels like his lungs have seized and his stomach has dropped. “I want you to.”

Liam shudders, kissing Zayn with his palm cupping the nape of his neck and yanking him forward until their teeth clack. He can feel his palms sweating and his heart plummeting in his heart, beating so quickly it stands out among the other sounds he can hear: Zayn’s breathing, the occasional moan that will escape deep within in his throat, bones knocking together, sheets rustling, the thunder outside.

It suddenly sounds like a very good idea. “Yes, yes, I want to.” Liam says hurriedly.

Zayn rolls onto his stomach, digging through his bedside drawer. Liam traces his spine, the dip between his shoulder blades, down to the curve of his arse, the cheeks, the tops of his thighs. A shiver runs through Zayn, a visible shiver, and Liam can’t help but smile. His body is too hot and desire is illuminating every movement he makes.

There’s a bottle that fits neatly inside Zayn’s hand when he turns around, a condom tucked between his lips. Liam takes him from his teeth, holding the little square in his hand before setting it on Zayn’s sheets. Zayn is flushed and his cock is aching against his hip, the bones tucked smartly underneath his skin, belly clenching slightly when Liam runs his fingers up Zayn’s stomach, still wet with his own precome.

“You’re really sort of beautiful, you know.” Liam says, and he can feel his own cheeks heat, despite being completely naked next to a boy he’s about to lose his virginity to. Zayn smiles, his pearly whites a lovely straight row shining up at him. Zayn pulls him down next to him, kissing him again, a wet smack of lips and tongue.

“Give me your hand, Li,” Zayn murmurs, pulling Liam by the wrist and pressing a fair amount of lube on his fingers. “Start with one finger, and then when I say, give two. You’ve got to open me up, you know? It’ll feel nice.”

Liam nods numbly, holding his hand steady so lube doesn’t spill onto the comforter. Zayn is lying on his back with his legs bent at the knee, and Liam mimics something Zayn often does, kissing his knee cap, the side of leg, before pressing a finger just past the ring of muscle.

It’s hot, so inexplicably warm and Liam presses his first finger in, feeling the way Zayn clenches around it, back arching a nearly imperceptible amount. Liam wiggles around before hooking his finger against a soft spot inside Zayn, who nods hurriedly in response.

“Okay, another. You’re doing so well,” Zayn breathes out, running his fingers down Liam’s shoulder, the touch just enough to tickle and spark goosebumps all over his skin. There’s a tingling in his back, and still that taut heat from his boner, but Liam is already starting to see the perks of this, the perks of being this close to Zayn.

The second one, Liam feels, might to be a stretch, it might hurt, but Zayn keeps nodding, running his feet up and down the comforter, coaxing Liam through it until Liam is scissoring with more confidence, his forearm straining until it stings and Zayn’s eyes are closed, mouth parted and strangling the moan that creeps up his throat when Liam reaches down to kiss the tip of his dick. It tastes salty. Liam wonders if that is what it taste like for Zayn when he blew Liam for the first time, or if everyone tastes differently. He takes an experimental lick, going as far as putting the tip of his head inside his mouth, kissing the sides and moving his fingers in tandem.

“I’m not going to last, so let’s do this, okay?” Zayn pants, sitting up and ripping the condom with his fingers, sliding it up Liam and pinching the tip, slicking him with lube until Liam feels that twist at the base of his spine again, stirring something inside his muscle and his blood. Zayn makes a movement to lie back down, hooking Liam’s knees with his ankles, but Liam stops him.

He cups Zayn’s cheeks, ignoring the shake of his hands, “Close your eyes.”

Zayn does, and Liam kisses both eyelids, as chastely as can be, before pressing him down into the mattress and kissing them again, and again, until Zayn has enough eyelid kisses to last him through every terrible memory of his first time. “There are no candles,” he murmurs, licking at Zayn’s skin as he spreads apart his legs, cock bobbing obscenely between them. “No roses.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Zayn shrugs, eyelashes fluttering, and he’s smiling so surely there’s nearly a dimple in his cheek, wings of pink highlighting his face. “There’s a you, and a me, and that’s enough.”

He helps guide Liam in, nudging against his hole briefly and consents for Liam to push through after a second. A gust of breath leaves Zayn like he’s been punched when Liam bottoms out, chest heaving slightly.

“Are you okay? Do you want to stop?” Liam asks, voice struggling because the heat and tightness and Zayn feels amazing, really, but there’s a pinched look in his face and his cheeks are pink with pain and Liam never wants him to look like that.

“No,” Zayn edges out. “It’s been a long time, but keep going. I want to feel you inside of me, please, Li.”

His voice breaks at the end, and Liam’s toes curl, nudging up until he can slide fully in again, head dipping  down until his chin bumps into his own chest. Zayn is stretching his body like a cat, legs wrapping around Liam’s hips and he can’t help but run his hands up the back of Zayn’s thighs, lifting them up onto his shoulders.

“Keep going,” Zayn gasps, ankles locking behind Liam’s head as the angle drives deeper, and Liam’s arms are straining to keep himself up and there are beads of sweat down his back but he’s finally got a rhythm, pumping out of Zayn with enough speed just to bump him against the bed, Zayn’s fingers grasping the sheets above his head.

Liam grips at Zayn’s hips, pulling him closer until the back of his thighs are flush against Liam’s abdomen and Zayn tips his head back, mouth parting in a choked moan before his hips stutter on their own, cock bouncing against his stomach. A thin blob of precome smears onto his abdomen, and Liam has the urge to lick it.

He can feel every muscle clenching, the arches of his feet strained and aching as he tries to gain better footing while trying to keep his pace - the angle is better than ever, and every time he thrusts inside of Zayn he could feel the hot, slick slide between them. His body burns, heart thumping wildly in his heart and hair sticking to his forehead. He pulls Zayn’s hips closer to him, kneeling slightly on the edge of the mattress so his hands can move to Zayn’s throbbing, pink cock. It’s almost entirely too intoxicating, touching Zayn like this.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, keep going - keep - “ Zayn chants quietly, and Liam can’t find it in himself to say anything, so he nods instead, and then he jackrabbits in closer, and closer, pulling Zayn off as best as he can. The rhythm is terrible  but both of them are too far gone to care. Liam feels himself seize suddenly and come, and he pumps Zayn until he cries out, striping his stomach and Liam’s hand.

Liam pulls out and shucks the condom in Zayn’s waste paper pin and Zayn has rolled over onto his stomach, head between his forearms.

“Hey,” Liam sits next to him, running a hand down Zayn’s arm. Zayn turns his cheek against his arm, peering up at him. His face is unusually hard to read, and for a moment, Liam feels something sink inside him. He does not like the feeling that something has gone terribly wrong. “Are you - are you okay?”

“I am,” Zayn croaks, and that’s when Liam really wants to panic, completely naked and still with a bit of come on his stomach, because Zayn sounds like he might be crying.

“No, no, you don’t sound okay,” Liam argues gently, getting off the bed and kneeling in front of Zayn. “Did I do something wrong?”

He smiles, “God, not at all. You’re - you - make me want you so entirely, you know? It’s overwhelming. I want your scars and your curves and your muscles and your everything. I’ve never felt that way.”

Liam has no idea what to say, except, “I love you.”

He blinks, slowly, eyelashes damp like water damaged curtains. “Do you?”

Liam nods. He feels nearly like he did when he found his grandmother: frozen and vulnerable and soft and small, but Zayn is tainting these feelings this time, and they’re not so harsh.

“It scares me. Saying that.”

“That’s okay. I’m scared too. It’s okay to be scared.”

Zayn reaches out to cup Liam’s cheek, running his fingers over the freckled bone and down towards his jaw. He smiles, sweetly, leaning over in all his naked, vulnerable, lilac eyed glory and whispers three words into Liam’s ear, his breath hot and musky against his chin.

-

They take a shower in Zayn’s bathroom, sudzing each other up and Zayn gives  Liam a shampoo quiff, and Liam counts the hickeys he has on his chest and lower neck; four in total. They make out underneath the water, tongues sliding together and Zayn’s skin is slippery with soap in Liam’s hands.

Liam can feel the morning arthritis and the stomach grumbling and the headaches and the heartburn wash away with the water. There is less heaviness in his chest, and he can breathe easier. He feels greedy now, almost, being able to look at Zayn and touch him and say, this is my freckle on your shoulder, this is my hand to hold. He doesn’t have nightmares about falling in love anymore, he doesn’t think about falling at all. Because he isn’t. He isn’t falling. He’s finally found what he needed, just a balcony over.

-

Ruth is holding her bible study group in the dining room, serving cakes and Yorkshire tea, her smile permanently carved into her face.

“Liam,” she announces to the whole room, and he stops, deer eyes in the headlights on the way to the kitchen. “This the bible study. Sisters, this is Liam, my brother.”

“Hello, Liam,” they titter, all of the women varying degrees of age.

“Er, hi. Hello,” he clears his throat. “I was just - “

“Would you like to join us?” Ruth perks up, eyebrows shooting past her blonde bangs. “Of course there is room for you.”

“I was actually going to see...Niall, he’s not feeling well and I wanted to bring him some of that turkey soup you made,” Liam lies easily. Ruth’s eyes flicker for a second and her smile fades, but she covers it in record time. It’s only because Liam has gotten so well at reading her emotions that he would notice.

“Sad you’ll miss it,” she laments, her voice hard like marble, “but what a nice thing you’re doing for your friend.”

“Thanks,” he scratches the back of his head. Ruth is trying to be nice, really trying, and it makes his stomach squirm. “I’ll see you. Have a nice night, sisters.”

They wave goodbye, and Ruth sits back down among them. She disappears into the sea of black and white and prim.

-

He does in fact bring over some turkey soup for Zayn, who eats everything in it except for the celery. He licks his lips of stock and starts fiddling with his record player, which he brought inside to avoid water damage.

“You haven’t put up any Christmas lights up,” Liam mentions, because Christmas is not even five days away, and Zayn’s skinny, archaic white house was bare of any decoration. Ruth had even hired someone to put up all the decorations on his grandmother’s home just last weekend.

“No, haven’t,” Zayn remarks distractedly, before a smile blooms on his face. “God, listen to this - ‘ _If I had a Boat_ ,’” turning the volume up on his laptop. “Come on, up, up, we’ve got to dance to this.”

Liam laughs, standing up even though his knees creak and they’re wearing socks and Zayn’s multi colored boxers in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. Zayn’s skin is so much colder than his own. “This is a lovely song.”

Zayn scoffs, his hand cupping his waist and making Liam’s abdomen muscles jump, the other taking his hand as they clumsily move around the room. “Of course it is. It’s one of my favorites, hmm? Makes me think we could really run away.”

“Where would we run to?”

Zayn’s eyes are mischievous. They sparkle. “Anywhere. Let’s just get on a train and go to London. Or Brighton. Or we could go all the way up to Aberdeen, and absolutely freeze our bollocks off.”

“Okay, well,” Liam considers it, “Anywhere you want to go, I’ll go with you.”

“Shh, shh, listen to this part,” Zayn sighs, leaning his cheek on Liam’s shoulder. They’ve stopped swaying, and the song plays - if I had a boat, I would sail to you, hold you in my arms, ask you to be true.

They stand there in place for ages, long after the song ends, and then when they part, Zayn’s eyes are damp. Liam gives him the benefit of pretending not to notice, instead pulling him closer and kissing him hard.

-

Harry invites Liam and Niall over to his mother’s home on the outskirts of town. The night before it had been record snowfall in Wolverhampton and he was eager to celebrate with a snowball fight or at least a half-ass attempt at a decent snowman. “And bring this - uh, what’d Niall call him - non-bird over. We’d love to meet him.”

So Liam does, and Zayn agrees hesitantly, but his smile reappears a few minutes after Liam kisses him thankfully. His cheeks blush, not from the cold, and Liam touches the heated skin there, until that’s all he wants to do. He maps out Zayn’s skin like it’s a piece of art on his bedroom floor, surrounded by Christmas candy and a half-broken record player and some of Zayn’s laundry, kissing each kneecap and elbow and wrist and eyelid. It’s possibly record time that their clothes are off, and Liam is slicking two fingers and pressing inside.

There’s this smile on Zayn’s face when Liam enters him, groaning when he bottoms out and his thighs are pressed flush against Liam’s v-cut. “Keep going,” Zayn urges, nudging Liam with his ankles.

Liam leans down and covers Zayn’s body with his own, kissing his earlobes and leaving a trail of teeth down his jaw. His knees fold over Liam’s elbows as he thrusts into him, Zayn lifting his hips until the angle changes and Liam is driving deeper than before.

“Right - right there,” Zayn pants, tipping his head back as his eyes squeeze shut, “Don’t shift, right there, right there -”

“Okay, okay,” Liam hums, and then he does the opposite of what he’s told and flips them over, Zayn planting his hands on Liam’s chest and sinking down until he’s fully seat again.

“My God,” Zayn shudders, before starting to move, his cock nearly smacking Liam in the stomach. His smile returns as he runs his fingers up Liam’s shoulders and into his hair, pulling the curls back against his forehead. His picks up the pace until Liam’s mind is nearly one track and all he can think is faster, faster, faster.

Liam can see the way Zayn’s muscles are contracting and tensing underneath his skin, he knows his own are; as his orgasm coils deep within his belly, and he finds the coordination in him to tug on Zayn’s dick, slicking it with pre come and pressing along the tip. Zayn nods feverishly as Liam continues to jack him off, and when he comes it’s white hot on Liam’s stomach.

He flips them over and jackrabbits Zayn through it, spreading his thighs wide and Zayn pushes at a pile of laundry before stretching along Liam’s body like a cat, sticky wet between them. There isn’t a care in the world, and Zayn looks at Liam through hooded eyes - “We’re going to try for two?” he asks, before gasping sensitively when Liam sucks on one of his nipples.

“Yes,” Liam nods hurriedly, moving slower inside of him, holding off his orgasm, “I want to make a mess of you. You look beautiful like this.”

Zayn laughs dazedly, “ _I_ look beautiful. You should see yourself. You give debauchery a whole new meaning.”

Liam kisses him, finding his hands and linking their fingers, pushing Zayn’s wrists above his head. Zayn grins again, lifting his head and nipping at Liam’s bottom lip.

It’s too much, Zayn’s heated, sweaty skin against his and every movement and swirl of his hips against him, all the friction overwhelmingly good until Liam’s muscles are straining and his toes are curling so hard he feel like he might break. He comes, filling the tight press of the condom and panting.

Zayn is hard again, mewling with his hands still above his head, squirming under Liam’s hold. He pulls out with a groan, before leaning down and swallowing Zayn down entirely. There’s no finesses about it, no kitten licks or kissing like Zayn had taught him; just one long slurp down to the base of his dick. Zayn seems to be past caring, his hips thrusting in tiny increments despite Liam’s forearm holding his stomach down.

He sucks him down, breathing through his nose. His eyes are nearly watering and he knows his face is pink, but he keeps at it, feeling the way Zayn’s thighs jump and stretch, pulling tighter like strings on a bow. His hands are wrapped in Liam’s hair, fingers massaging his scalp.

When he comes, he says Liam’s name, and it’s quite possibly the best thing Liam’s ever heard.

They lie next to each other, hips lining up. Zayn pushes a crack in his sliding glass door so he can smoke a cigarette, and Liam discards his condom, cleaning up his stomach with a roll of paper towels found on Zayn’s desk. Why they were there, neither of them know.

“What are you friends like?” Zayn asks, resting his head on Liam’s shoulder and blowing smoke rings lazily.

“Louis and I have known each other the longest. He’s been at uni for this year but he’s home now for winter hols. He’s good at being the funny one, but he’s also the most sensitive - you know. He picks up on a lot things, how people are feeling. He’s been dating Harry, my other friend, since Harry’s sixform started. Harry’s a bit of a romantic. Lot of people think he’s a total slag, but he’s not. And Niall is like, the best. Niall is like coming home. He always has hot, homemade food and he’s always up for a pint, even though I don’t drink. You’ll like Niall. He’s kind of like this ball of energy - but don’t let it intimidate you. He’ll like you upon meeting you.”

“How do you know that?” Zayn teases. “They may shut the door in my face.”

“I know because Niall has this power to see the inherent good in everyone. It’s why he has so many friends. People appreciate his kindness without realizing they do.”

“They sound really nice, Li. And it sounds like you love them alot.”

“I do,” Liam murmurs quietly, nosing the top of Zayn’s head. “I love you, too, though.”

Zayn sighs contently, finding Liam’s hand and fitting them together neatly, like they’ve been doing it for ages. “I think I could love you every day and I wouldn’t get sick of it. I could never get sick of this feeling.”

“Good thing we have time, then.”

“Yeah,” Zayn laughs, rolling them over and licking the inside of Liam’s ear, laughing when Liam swats him, “Good thing we do.”

 

-

The buses don’t run because of the snow, so Liam and Zayn walk to Harry’s in their heavy boots. They pile on sweaters, Liam smelling of Zayn and Zayn smelling of  Liam, sharing a mitten as they walk. Zayn hides his hand inside of Liam’s coat pocket. The streets are nearly empty, darkness settling even though it’s early evening, Christmas lights flickering from every street corner. It’s content, this peacefulness, this tranquility. Zayn smiles as they stumble along the snow-trodden path to Harry’s neighborhood and points out every visible star for Liam to see.

-

Niall is the first to answer the door, pushing Harry away and grinning, cheeks pink and a cup of eggnog in his hand. “Liam! Shit, did you walk here? Are ya bloody mad?”

Liam shrugs good naturedly. He’s gaining feeling back in his nose, which was exposed to the stark night air. “I suppose. I had company.”

“You brought non-bird!” Niall cheers, nearly sloshing his eggnog when he throws his arms up. Zayn flushes, grinning nervously as he stands slightly behind Liam.

“I’m Zayn,” he introduces himself, waving with two fingers.

“Niall, resident best friend of Liam Payne,” Niall smiles, mocking a serious voice. “Come on in, don’t stand freezing your tits off in the cold, christ.”

Liam smiles at Zayn, somewhat apologetically. Zayn grins back.

They shuck their big coats and Louis nearly tackles Liam in a bear hug, blabbering about how much he missed him and how uni was so far away and if Liam was surviving without him. He was mostly joking, pretending to sob until he was able to locate Liam’s nipple through all his sweaters and pinch it.

“You brought a friend,” Louis remarks, moving away from Liam and peering at Zayn, who looks at him with wide eyes. “A very pretty friend. Niall, is this the non-bird you were speaking of?”

“The very one, unless Liam’s been a bit of a slag these past few months,” Niall nods seriously. Liam inwardly groans as they all close in on Zayn, Harry unable to keep his cheeky grin off his face.

Louis stares at him hard for what seems like minutes, until Liam is nearly forced to intervene this awkward, staring contest competition - except Louis then pats him on the shoulder and says, “Seems alright. What’s your name? I’m Louis.”

“Zayn,” he smile is unsure, looking over at Liam bewilderingly. Liam just sighs.

“Harry,” Harry chirps, sliding right into Zayn’s personal space and nearly resting his head on Zayn’s shoulder. “Why haven’t I seen you around before?”

“I do online courses,” Zayn explains, “And I like good music, and hookah, and I love Liam. If you have any more questions.”

Harry stares at him for a moment before giggling cheekily. “Oh, I like him, Lou. He’s a keeper.”

“Okay, are we done being absolutely weird?” Liam asks with an edge of exasperation in his voice. “I was promised a snowball fight and a snowman and no more creepiness bestowed upon Zayn.”

They do end up doing exactly as Liam was promised. Zayn and Liam and Niall are on a team against Louis and Harry for a snowball tournament, which works in their favor immensely because Harry is absolutely useless at throwing and being serious about any competition, and Louis is too busy trying to protect him from getting hit to do any real damage. Zayn, it turns out, has a seriously decent right arm.

They make a snowman as Louis wrestles Niall in the snow, and Harry is all for getting a carrot for the snowman until he feels the need to interrupt the fighting and make out with Louis instead, rolling around in the snow until they’ve made a very strange shape.

Zayn and Liam go inside instead to get a carrot. “I know they’re a bit wild, but.” Liam actually has no idea what to say after that.

Zayn grins, “I’ve never really had friends likes your’s. I like them. And they really, really, love you.”

“In their own way,” Liam shrugs, cheeks pinking just thinking about Harry and Louis and Niall. He leans over to kiss Zayn against the refridgerator. They end up knocking a ton of magnets off the front, and their kisses are interrupted by laughter when they all fall unto the floor.

-

They fall asleep one by one on Harry’s floor watching the claymation versios of _Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer_. Zayn sings the song in Liam ear quietly along with the movie, holding his and blinking slowly until he fades off into sleep.

-

Christmas is a quiet affair the day of. Ruth gives him a new Bible and six pairs of socks, and Liam had bought her a stationary set with her initials customized on them. The present he’s bought for Zayn is up in his room, underneath his mattress.

Later, Ruth takes him the soup kitchen inside the church and Liam helps feed those who cannot pay for Christmas dinner themselves. It isn’t until he passes a plate of turkey and creamy mash over to a boy his age that he turns to Ruth and says, “I love you. Happy Christmas.”

She blinks for a second, before saying, “I love you too.”

He knows that she is what stands between that boy and his comfy existence in his private school and seeing his friends and living in his grandmother’s home. The money given to him in the will is untouchable until he reaches the age of eighteen, and he would have very well been sent to the foster system had she not moved back to live with him. He feels, despite Ruth’s misgivings towards God and faith, that she has a very good heart beneath all the barb wire.

They sing _Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas_ the whole way home, laughing when their acapella reaches new levels of shrieking.

-

Zayn’s home is vacant for the six days after Christmas day, and even though Liam knew this was going to happen, because the Maliks go back to Bradford to visit with their family there, Liam feels listless and lonely without him. He reads, catches up on nearly all his coursework, and eats his weight in food at Niall’s house. Louis only has sixteen days until he’s due back for Uni, and his neck is littered with bruises courtesy of Harry.

Liam wonders distantly one afternoon if he looks at Zayn the way Harry looks at Louis. Like he’s constantly on the verge of elation and vulnerability at the same time, sneaking glances like he might forget the familiar curves of Louis’ face.

Liam knows what it’s like to love a person that much now. He understands a little better. It still scares him.

-

The Malik’s shiny black Mercedes is in the driveway when Liam returns from a service with Ruth, who had begrudged him into coming with the promise of good pastries at the after service. Liam can barely contain his excitement as he peels out of his Church clothes, slipping into his sweatpants and rain boots as he sneaks into Zayn’s backyard, mindful of the slippery steps.

It isn’t late, or at least, Liam doesn’t think so, seeing as Zayn rarely falls asleep until it starts to get light out - but he’s curled up underneath his duvet when Liam slips in. He pads over, out of his boots and sweats and crawling in beside him. Zayn is warm except for his icy toes, which he pressed instinctively against Liam’s calves when he snuggles in.

“Knew you’d come,” Zayn slurs, eyes crusted shut. Liam kisses his cheek bone and the side of his neck, inhaling his hair and snaking his arm around Zayn’s abdomen. He can feel Zayn’s fingers find his hand and hold it in place. They’re clammy, sleep warm.

“Course. Go back to sleep.” Liam whispers, closing his eyes even though he’s not particularly tired.

“Don’t leave,” Zayn murmurs uselessly, already sinking back into a deep sleep. Liam holds him closer, until their bones melt together and form as one, untill that one elbow in his ribs doesn’t bother him, and the freezing feet don’t feel so cold at all.

-

Zayn is sitting up with a cup of tea in his hands when Liam wakes up. He looks unbelievably tired, dark purple rings underneath his eyes, lids drooping every time he blinked. Liam is worried. There is no trace of cheeriness, no laugh lines, no good morning, starshine. Zayn is hunched over, bones curving like a Tim Burton protagonist into himself, like every sadness has beguiled him in the six days he’s been gone.

“Sleep well?” Liam asks, but it’s feeble. There’s an elephant in the room, but he’s not sure what it is.

“I couldn’t, really.” Zayn laughs, but it’s bitter and makes Liam flinch. The muscles in Zayn’s jaw clench as he turns away, looking stricken and exhausted. “I have something to tell you.”

Liam doesn’t know what he’s going to say but his stomach swirls with uneasiness, building higher and higher until he nearly clutches it, lest it fall out onto the sheets and stain them rusty brown. He swallows thickly, eyes still encrusted with sleep. “You can tell me anything,” he says honestly.

Zayn blinks for a long moment, putting down his tea on the bedside table and wiping his mouth.

“At my aunt’s, the arguing came to a head and my mother fell back into a glass showcase and broke it,” he takes a shuddering breath, rubbing his eyes. Liam wonders if he does it so he doesn’t have to look Liam in the eye. “So they’re finally getting divorced, and my mother is taking me back to Bradford to live with her and my aunt after New Years.”

Liam’s blood runs cold, and it’s one of those terrible moments where he’s not sure if he’s heard what Zayn said correctly, because surely - surely he isn’t leaving back to Bradford, surely he’s misunderstood, perhaps he meant something different entirely -

“I tried to make her understand that I have finally found a reason to stay here, but my mother is done. She doesn’t want to be in household filled with anger and resentment,” Zayn looks so morose, eyes burrowing into his hands. “And neither do I. I am so sorry, Li.”

“It’s okay,” Liam has a hard time swallowing. He has no idea where these words are coming from. He’s unable to think. “I understand.”

“Why aren’t you upset?” Zayn asks wetly, eyes filled to the brim with tears, “Why don’t you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you for wanting to get out of this. I could never hate you, probably,” Liam breath hitches. He reaches out for Zayn’s hand, emotion welling up inside and threatening to spill over. Somehow he keeps it contained in his heart, swallowing it whole and letting the fear, the sadness, the anger smother him instead. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

Zayn starts to cry. “Me, too,” he manages. “I am. I promised you I wouldn’t go anywhere you wouldn’t go and - I meant that. I can finish up year twelve as soon as possible, and I’ll come back for you, I’ll come back to this - “

“- shit village and we could run away together,” Liam finishes weakly, body exhausted even though he’s just woken up. “Anywhere you want to go, we’ll run away.”

Zayn scoots closer, kissing his knuckles and holding them against his mouth. “I love you.”

Liam shivers in response. Zayn doesn’t let go of his hands.

-

Liam holds his head under the bathwater for a record minute thirty. When he comes for air, he feels raw and vulnerable with pearly pink skin. Zayn’s Christmas present is still underneath his mattress.

-

Niall sits stoically at the end of his bed while Harry pets Liam’s hair, despite Liam protesting that he need not to. Louis is curled up in the desk chair, his knees locked behind his arms. He looks strangely still for someone Liam has always seen in the midst of movement. Maybe this is sadness.

“So when’s the date, then?” Niall finally asks.

“January second,” Liam croaks, “Gone.”

“He doesn’t want to stay with his dad?” Louis asks softly.

“Zayn calls his father ‘The Doctor’. From what he’s told me, there’s little to no relationship there. I won’t make him stay. S’not worth it.”

“I think you’re worth it, Li.” Harry protests, snuggling into Liam’s side. “I think you think you aren’t, but just by talking to Zayn, we know he loves you so much. If you asked him to stay, he would.”

“Exactly. Zayn’s used to putting himself second or third or fourth. It’ll be better for him in Bradford - healthier. He’s going on the fast course for his year twelve qualifications, get his A levels, and he says he’ll come back here until I’ve graduated. I just...” Liam looks at his hands, cradling his head in them, kneading at the soreness behind his temples.

“You’re always so sensible, Li. Even when your grandmother passed - and you loved her more than anything - and now you’re going to lose - it’s - _be_ upset about it. Don’t hold it in. We’re here for you, always. I am, mate,” Niall informs him fiercely into his ear.

“I don’t want to let anyone down,” Liam whispers, throat sore from holding back the monster in his chest. He doesn’t know why he’s saying anything at all. It’s like something inside of him has broken a little. Tears slip on their own accord between his fingers.

“You aren’t letting anyone down,” Louis murmurs, “I promise.”

-

Zayn's room is mostly packed when Liam slips in the sliding glass door. The Kurt Cobain poster, along with a Harry Potter circa 2001 poster are rolled up, the walls a stark and bare plum purple. Boxes of records, cds, dvds, and books are piled by the door neatly. There are no clothes, no paint sets or stacks of academic text books on the floor. Zayn’s bed is made. The room that once seemed so lively now feels like an empty shell to Liam.

“Hey,” Zayn says softly, standing in the bathroom doorway. He looks around, gesturing at the bland walls with a pitying wave. “It’s all empty now. Almost set to go.”

“Yeah,” Liam swallows, his throat dry suddenly. “Come here.”

Zayn obeys, walking towards Liam and standing directly in front of him. Liam takes him by the waist, and they start to sway around the room in the same fashion they did in Liam’s room those months ago, when everything Zayn did burned and scorched in the absolute best way.

“There’s no music,” Zayn murmurs.

Liam shakes his head, “Doesn’t matter. There’s a you, and a me, and that’s enough.”

“Yeah,” Zayn nods, leaning his head on Liam’s shoulder. A familiar occurrence. Liam is going to miss it. Liam is going to miss all the small things. The hand holding, playing with Zayn’s fingers, waking up slowly next to him, his different types of smiles. Those are things that are going to kill him.

-

It’s New Years Eve, and Liam and Zayn have made love three times, one right after the other. They’re intent on not stopping when he gets a text message from Ruth. Come home.

So he reluctantly parts, slipping back into his own skin and dressing himself with sluggish, drugged fingers. He wants to bury himself back inside of Zayn’s weed and incense smell, live there forever and never leave.

Zayn looks up at him, debauched on the bed with slow, sad, eyes. “Will you be back tonight?”

Liam nods. Leans down to kiss Zayn on his cheek, then his eyelid, then his chin. He has to pull his hand free from Zayn’s grasp, and it hurts to do so. This is what it is like to love, Liam knows now. This is what it is like to love properly. Though his heart clenches, he does not regret it. Liam revels in it.

Ruth is seething, Liam can feel it when he walks through the door. There’s an air in the house, something misleading and stale that Liam has never felt before his grandmother died. It’s unwelcome. The grandfather clock chimes seven in the evening.

“Ruth,”  he hedges, seeing her standing with white knuckles at the sink, the water still running over a pot of boiled potatoes. “You wanted to me home?”

“Where were you just now?” she asks softly, eyes glazed over.

“I was with Niall - “

“Liar.” Ruth states primly. “You were not.”

“What are you on about?” Liam stutters. His whole body is stiff with fear, and for a wild moment, he looks for her bible. It’s sitting on the counter in equal distance between the two of them.

“Harry Styles' mother called, Anne. Said it was lovely that you had come over the other night during the snowstorm,” Ruth throws the knife in the sink violently and Liam flinches, listening to it clatter. It raises goosebumps on his arms. “I thought I made it clear you do not hang around boys like Harry Styles, Liam. It’s not welcome to associate with those who are openly accepting of their sins. Their sins against God.”

“What? You never said - you never said that I couldn’t - “ he splutters, trying to find his words.

Ruth cheeks are red and spotty. She’s nearly screeching. “I shouldn’t have to! It should be obvious that we don’t associate with faggots - “

“I am a faggot, then,” Liam yells back, and Ruth recoils as if he’s physically slapped her across the face. “I am a faggot, so what are you going to say about me?”

“Take that back, Liam Payne,” she whispers dangerously. “Don’t you dare say another word about that.”

“Why? Because you don’t like it? God, I’m _in love_ with a boy, for chrissakes - and I don’t care if you think that’s wrong. I love him, Ruth, and I’ve kissed him, and I’ve had sex with him - “ Liam can’t breathe, he’s yelling so loudly, face hot and barely able to move from his spot.

Ruth’s hand comes down across his mouth, her ring cutting his lip open before he can back away from her. Her eyes are livid, a glint in them so foreignly disgusted that Liam does not recognize her at all. “How dare you speak to me that way.”

“How dare you touch me this way,” Liam counters, holding his mouth. “Hit me again, I want you to. Hit me again, Ruth. I deserve it, don’t I?” Liam laughs bitterly. “I’m in love and that’s a sin because he’s a boy. I don’t care anymore. Hit me.”

Her face is the color of puce as she reaches her hand back to slap him again, this time hitting his eye. Liam doesn’t duck, his neck nearly snapping with the force of her palm. He doesn’t defend himself. Ruth hits him again, until his eyes are watery and his face is stinging and probably bright pink. His sister backs away from him, holding her hand against her mouth and breathing deeply. She looks repulsed by him.

“You're a coward if anything, Ruth. So scared of everything you don’t know. I love you so much, okay? I fucking love you, - but you can’t spew your hate speech bullshit here. This is my house now. If you touch me again, I will call Nicola, and I will ask you to leave.”

“Nicola is a slag with no direction in life,” Ruth sneers, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re barely sixteen.”

“I know a lot more than you ever will,” Liam says solemnly, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “I will not tolerate you wielding that book like it gives you the right to hate people. You can love your God and let others love theirs, too.”

He leaves his sister in the kitchen and washes his face with a damp rag. There is a good chance there will be another bruise, which is another story he’ll need to explain to Niall and Harry, but when he breathes it is not lead heavy. He is not dishonest. Liam reaches underneath his mattress, throwing a night bag together and leaving out the front door, letting it slam loudly behind him.

-

“You leave for thirty bloody minutes and you come back like this - Jesus Christ, Liam, what is wrong with you? Do you pick fights with her?” Zayn curses him, leaning over Liam on the toilet and cleaning his lip. The anesthetic stings, but otherwise, Liam feels like he could be made out of air.

“I was defending your honor,” Liam jokes, and Zayn purses his lips. “She doesn’t need a reason to do this, Zayn. She’ll do it when she feels. I told her not to touch me again.”

“I’m going to worry about this, you know I am,” Zayn scolds him. He cups Liam’s cheeks in his hands and kisses him chastely.

“I know. And I’m sorry,” Liam mutters, “I have your Christmas present, even though you don’t celebrate it - just think of it as your birthday gift, if you wanted to instead.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything, Li,” Zayn protests, following Liam out of the bathroom with a washcloth still in his hand. Liam shakes his head, digging through his bag.

“I wanted to. It’s for us. Here,” he hands them over.

Zayn takes a second to read the two tickets in his hands. “They’re train tickets to the town over.”

“We can catch the next train if we go now, and be back in the morning so you can leave with your mum. But this - I wanted to be able to run away with you, if just for a night. It’s the last day of the year. I want to spend it only with you.”

Zayn nods, “Let’s go.”

-

So they go. Zayn gives him six CDs on the way to the train station, bundled up in their thickest coats, sharing mittens again for warmth.'Each Cd is titled by month since Liam’s met him.

“Listen to them. Broaden your musical experiences and all that. I won’t be able to do it for you, so,” Zayn lights a fag, smoke wisping and creating shapes in the cold, “Good stuff. Arctic Monkey’s, o’course, along with Arcade Fire, Ed Sheeran, The Cure - and your favorite - “

“ _Love Will Tear Us Apart_ ,” Liam finishes for him, smiling. His nose is numb.

“Dunno why you love that song, really,” Zayn picks up his recycled argument about Liam liking Joy Division since being introduced to them, “Dreadfully sad, innit.”

They curl up on the station benches, waiting for the last train to arrive and take them away. It feels later than eight, being as dark as it is. For New Years, the station is empty. Perhaps everyone else is off celebrating a new year with their old friends and cheap liquor, kissing the night away and pretending not to be sad when they go home. Liam doesn’t know. He holds Zayn’s hand until their palms are clammy.

“I start swimming in the spring. Build up my muscles. And then Louis will end the school year earlier than us and Harry will brighten up. Ruth will start her seminary training, so she’ll be out the house plenty. I’ll put flowers on my grandmother’s grave and eat homemade food with Niall and his Da most evenings. I’ll miss you every day. Nothing will change.” Liam tells him this very quietly. “I won’t change. I’ll think of you every day.”

“I’ll be back before you realize I was gone. I’ll skype and text and email and remind myself that I’m not so alone anymore. I’ll try to sleep, and I’ll visit you in my dreams.”

“Promise me you won’t be sad,” Liam nudges his shoulder. Five minutes until their train boards. “Promise me you’ll call me when you are. There’s only a few hours drive between us. We can make it. I can come visit. I’ll have a Muslim Christmas, whatever you want. I won’t even eat pork.”

Zayn laughs, but it falters and fades. “And when you graduate, we’ll leave together properly. Won’t look back. We can go to London and get jobs and live in a one-room shit hole. Send Harry and Louis lots of postcards. Write Niall and me mum, too.”

“There’s a whole other world for us,” Liam agrees, picturing the future already. Zayn at eighteen, nineteen, twenty. University. Living together and eating cheap pot noodles and slow dancing. Listening to Zayn explain movie after movie. Liam making breakfast after Zayn’s morning prayers. Taking each day at a time and counting every lucky breath. Liam can see the train lights approaching, getting louder. It’s looming closer.

(There’s a you, and a me, and that’s enough.)

They board their train.

-

**Author's Note:**

> Critique is welcome if it is constructive. Thank you!


End file.
